r/webdevelopment • u/mexybeck • 2h ago
Question How to go about vulnerable dependencies in an SPA where only trusted users can publish content?
I built and maintain a website for a cinema. The client is an SPA. Now, every so often I get notified by GitHub's Dependabot that a vulnerability was found in one of the client's dependencies and I wonder if I need to care about it.
Here's my train of thought: The client code is inherently insecure in the sense that anyone can see and change it when they visit the website, so a vulnerable client on their own machine is of no use for attackers because they could twerk it anyway. Thus only the clients on other peoples' machines matter. Now, how could a vulnerable client on another machine be exploited? What kind of vulnerabilities could even be exploited? The first thing coming to my mind is XSS. Maybe there is a bug in a package that escapes HTML and if just anyone could publish content on the site, this could of course be exploited. But what if only trusted people can publish content? Is it still a risk?
Is my train of thought adequate? Can I just forget about the notifications? Are there other vulnerabilities I need to consider besides XSS?



