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.
Project Subscriptions
No data.
Advisories
No advisories yet.
Fixes
Solution
No solution given by the vendor.
Workaround
No workaround given by the vendor.
References
History
Wed, 15 Apr 2026 20:45:00 +0000
| Type | Values Removed | Values Added |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | |
| Title | ApostropheCMS: sanitize-html allowedTags Bypass via Entity-Decoded Text in nonTextTags Elements | |
| Weaknesses | CWE-79 | |
| References |
| |
| Metrics |
cvssV3_1
|
Projects
Sign in to view the affected projects.
Status: PUBLISHED
Assigner: GitHub_M
Published:
Updated: 2026-04-15T20:15:12.333Z
Reserved: 2026-04-09T20:59:17.620Z
Link: CVE-2026-40186
No data.
Status : Received
Published: 2026-04-15T21:17:27.523
Modified: 2026-04-15T21:17:27.523
Link: CVE-2026-40186
No data.
OpenCVE Enrichment
No data.
Weaknesses