This is a bypass for Akami WAF targeting Reflected XSS vulnerabilities. The payload uses a clever encoding technique that triggers an alert dialog by calling JavaScript's alert function in an obfuscated manner through event handlers like AutoFocus and OnFocus. It bypasses some common WAF filters by inserting special characters and comments inside the payload, making it more difficult for the WAF to detect the attack. Reflected XSS can lead to theft of session cookies, defacement, or redirection to malicious sites. The payload uses an HTML anchor tag with a JavaScript event handler that executes code when the element gains focus. It demonstrates the importance of properly encoding and sanitizing user inputs on the server side, beyond relying solely on WAF protections.
Check out the original tweet here: https://twitter.com/Manorr07/status/1959345854721986978