Hackers have leveraged a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in the Krpano framework, a tool used to embed 360° images and videos, to inject spam ads on over 350 websites, including government portals, universities, news outlets, and Fortune 500 companies. The campaign, named 360XSS, took advantage of a flaw in the framework’s XML parameter, which was designed to pass HTTP parameters to a panorama viewer. This vulnerability allowed attackers to manipulate search results by redirecting visitors to malicious sites, where Base64-encoded payloads fetched spam-related content, such as pornography ads, diet supplements, and online casinos.
The attack was discovered by security researcher Oleg Zaytsev, who stumbled upon the campaign while investigating a suspicious link associated with Yale University.
Despite the fact that Krpano introduced an update to prevent such attacks in version 1.20.10, Zaytsev found that certain configurations of the XML parameter could still reintroduce the XSS risk. The flaw, first disclosed in 2020 (CVE-2020-24901), had been known for several years, yet many sites still used vulnerable versions of the framework, allowing the hackers to exploit the issue on a large scale.
The malicious campaign manipulated search engine results by abusing the trust of legitimate websites to push harmful ads and content.
This type of attack, known as SEO poisoning, allowed the spam ads to appear prominently in search results, thus reaching a broad audience. Zaytsev highlighted that while reflected XSS vulnerabilities require user interaction, using search engines as a platform for distributing the malicious script was a creative tactic to ensure a large number of users were affected without them needing to click on any malicious link directly.
Following responsible disclosure, Krpano has released a new version (1.22.4) that eliminates the risk by restricting the XML parameter and improving the security of the “passQueryParameters” setting. Website owners using Krpano are advised to update their installations and disable the “passQueryParameters” option. Additionally, affected site owners are encouraged to review their websites and remove infected pages, with recommendations to use tools like Google Search Console to help detect and clean up the compromised content.
