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Vulnerability details: VCID-72kf-cb91-dkcy
Vulnerability ID VCID-72kf-cb91-dkcy
Aliases GHSA-5vp3-3cg6-2rq3
Summary JustHTML is vulnerable to XSS via code fence breakout in <pre> content ## Summary `to_markdown()` is vulnerable when serializing attacker-controlled `<pre>` content. The `<pre>` handler emits a fixed three-backtick fenced code block, but writes decoded text content into that fence without choosing a delimiter longer than any backtick run inside the content. An attacker can place backticks and HTML-like text inside a sanitized `<pre>` element so that the generated Markdown closes the fence early and leaves raw HTML outside the code block. When that Markdown is rendered by a CommonMark/GFM-style renderer that allows raw HTML, the HTML executes. This is a bypass of the v1.12.0 Markdown hardening. That fix escaped HTML-significant characters for regular text nodes, but `<pre>` uses a separate serialization path and does not apply the same protection. ## Details The vulnerable `<pre>` Markdown path: - extracts decoded text from the `<pre>` subtree - opens a fenced block with a fixed delimiter of `````` - writes the decoded text directly into the output - closes with another fixed `````` Because the fence length is fixed, attacker-controlled content containing a backtick run of length 3 or more can terminate the code block. If the content also contains decoded HTML-like text such as `&lt;img ...&gt;`, that text appears outside the fence in the resulting Markdown and is treated as raw HTML by downstream Markdown renderers. The issue is not that HTML-like text appears inside code blocks. The issue is that the serializer allows attacker-controlled `<pre>` text to break out of the fixed fence. ## Reproduction ```python from justhtml import JustHTML payload = "<pre>&#96;&#96;&#96;\n&lt;img src=x onerror=alert(1)&gt;</pre>" doc = JustHTML(payload, fragment=True) # default sanitize=True print(doc.to_html(pretty=False)) # <pre>``` # &lt;img src=x onerror=alert(1)&gt;</pre> print(doc.to_markdown()) # ``` # ``` # <img src=x onerror=alert(1)> # ``` ``` Rendered as CommonMark/GFM-style Markdown, that output is interpreted as: 1. Line 1 opens a fenced code block 2. Line 2 closes it 3. Line 3 is raw HTML outside the fence 4. Line 4 opens a new fence ## Impact Applications that treat `JustHTML(..., sanitize=True).to_markdown()` output as safe for direct rendering in Markdown contexts may be exposed to XSS, depending on the downstream Markdown renderer's raw-HTML handling. ## Root Cause The `<pre>` Markdown serializer uses a fixed fence instead of selecting a delimiter longer than the longest backtick run in the content. ## Fix When serializing `<pre>` content to Markdown, choose a fence length longer than any backtick run present in the code block content, with a minimum length of 3.
Status Published
Exploitability 0.5
Weighted Severity 8.0
Risk 4.0
Affected and Fixed Packages Package Details
Weaknesses (4)
No exploits are available.
Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:P/VC:N/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N Found at https://github.com/EmilStenstrom/justhtml
Attack Vector (AV) Attack Complexity (AC) Attack Requirements (AT) Privileges Required (PR) User Interaction (UI) Vulnerable System Impact Confidentiality (VC) Vulnerable System Impact Integrity (VI) Vulnerable System Impact Availability (VA) Subsequent System Impact Confidentiality (SC) Subsequent System Impact Integrity (SI) Subsequent System Impact Availability (SA)

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Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:P/VC:N/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N Found at https://github.com/EmilStenstrom/justhtml/commit/f35f8f723c713bd8f912d86e9ec6881275ff5af9
Attack Vector (AV) Attack Complexity (AC) Attack Requirements (AT) Privileges Required (PR) User Interaction (UI) Vulnerable System Impact Confidentiality (VC) Vulnerable System Impact Integrity (VI) Vulnerable System Impact Availability (VA) Subsequent System Impact Confidentiality (SC) Subsequent System Impact Integrity (SI) Subsequent System Impact Availability (SA)

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Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:P/VC:N/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N Found at https://github.com/EmilStenstrom/justhtml/releases/tag/v1.13.0
Attack Vector (AV) Attack Complexity (AC) Attack Requirements (AT) Privileges Required (PR) User Interaction (UI) Vulnerable System Impact Confidentiality (VC) Vulnerable System Impact Integrity (VI) Vulnerable System Impact Availability (VA) Subsequent System Impact Confidentiality (SC) Subsequent System Impact Integrity (SI) Subsequent System Impact Availability (SA)

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Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:P/VC:N/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N Found at https://github.com/EmilStenstrom/justhtml/security/advisories/GHSA-5vp3-3cg6-2rq3
Attack Vector (AV) Attack Complexity (AC) Attack Requirements (AT) Privileges Required (PR) User Interaction (UI) Vulnerable System Impact Confidentiality (VC) Vulnerable System Impact Integrity (VI) Vulnerable System Impact Availability (VA) Subsequent System Impact Confidentiality (SC) Subsequent System Impact Integrity (SI) Subsequent System Impact Availability (SA)

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No EPSS data available for this vulnerability.

Date Actor Action Source VulnerableCode Version
2026-06-12T07:48:50.485641+00:00 GithubOSV Importer Import https://github.com/github/advisory-database/blob/main/advisories/github-reviewed/2026/03/GHSA-5vp3-3cg6-2rq3/GHSA-5vp3-3cg6-2rq3.json 38.6.0