CVE-2026-40186

MEDIUM EPSS 14.3%
Published Apr 15, 20262mo ago · Modified Jun 17, 20262w ago
6.1 CVSS 3.1
Medium
Find Similar
Published Apr 15, 2026 2mo ago
Last Modified Jun 17, 2026 2w ago

Description

ApostropheCMS is an open-source Node.js content management system. A regression introduced in commit 49d0bb7, included in versions 2.17.1 of the ApostropheCMS-maintained sanitize-html package bypasses allowedTags enforcement for text inside nonTextTagsArray elements (textarea and option). ApostropheCMS version 4.28.0 is affected through its dependency on the vulnerable sanitize-html version. The code at packages/sanitize-html/index.js:569-573 incorrectly assumes that htmlparser2 does not decode entities inside these elements and skips escaping, but htmlparser2 10.x does decode entities before passing text to the ontext callback. As a result, entity-encoded HTML is decoded by the parser and then written directly to the output as literal HTML characters, completely bypassing the allowedTags filter. An attacker can inject arbitrary tags including XSS payloads through any allowed option or textarea element using entity encoding. This affects non-default configurations where option or textarea are included in allowedTags, which is common in form builders and CMS platforms. This issue has been fixed in version 2.17.2 of sanitize-html and 4.29.0 of ApostropheCMS.

CVSS Details

Base Score
6.1
Exploitability
2.8
Impact
2.7
Vector string
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N
Attack Vector Network
Attack Complexity Low
Privileges Required None
User Interaction Required
Scope Changed
Confidentiality Low
Integrity Low
Availability None

Threat Intelligence

EPSS Exploit Probability
14.3% percentile
Exploit & Patch Status
Public Exploit Known
Patch Available

Weaknesses 1

CWE-79 Cross-site Scripting Injection

Affected Products 2

VendorProductVersionRange
apostrophecmsapostrophecms4.29.0any
apostrophecmssanitize-html* ≤2.17.1

References 2

  • github.com https://github.com/apostrophecms/apostrophe/commit/7ca2d16237c72718ef7e5c7ae0458e6027ac4f64
    Patch
  • github.com https://github.com/apostrophecms/apostrophe/security/advisories/GHSA-9mrh-v2v3-xpfm
    ExploitVendor Advisory

Remediation

  • github.com https://github.com/apostrophecms/apostrophe/commit/7ca2d16237c72718ef7e5c7ae0458e6027ac4f64
    Patch