Rule Definition
jQuery before 1.9.0 is vulnerable to Cross-site Scripting (XSS) attacks. The jQuery(strInput) function does not differentiate selectors from HTML in a reliable fashion. In vulnerable versions, jQuery determined whether the input was HTML by looking for the '<' character anywhere in the string, giving attackers more flexibility when attempting to construct a malicious payload. In fixed versions, jQuery only deems the input to be HTML if it explicitly starts with the '<' character, limiting exploitability only to attackers who can control the beginning of a string, which is far less common. This rule has been listed as CVE-2012-6708 in the CVE registry.

Remediation
Do not use .html() or upgrade the jQuery library version

Violation Code Sample

// version impacted by the vulnerability
<script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.9.0.js"></script> 


<div id="log">Test passed</div>

...
<script>
$("#log").html(
    $("element[attribute='<div><strong>you should not see this</strong></div>']").html()
);
</script>
...

Fixed Code Sample

// version NOT impacted by the vulnerability
<script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.9.1.js"></script>


<div id="log">Test passed</div>

...
<script>
$("#log").html(
    $("element[attribute='<div><strong>you should not see this</strong></div>']").html()
);
</script>
...

https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2012-6708