Vulnerability Database

352,427

Total vulnerabilities in the database

CVE-2026-47423 — dompurify

Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')

Summary

DOMPurify 3.4.4 allows selectedcontent by default, allowing a chain in which browsers "re-clone" an XSS payload after sanitization, effectively bypassing DOMPurify.

Details

The chain is as follows:

  1. The browser parses the input and creates a <selectedcontent> clone from the selected <option>
  2. DOMPurify walks and sanitizes that generated clone.
  3. DOMPurify reaches the original <option> and removes selected=javascript:1
  4. The browser refreshes the <selectedcontent> clone from the original option's content.
  5. The refreshed clone is in a subtree DOMPurify already walked, which DOMPurify doesn't go back to sanitize
  6. The returned string contains unsanitized markup inside <selectedcontent>.

PoC

const dirty = '<select><button><selectedcontent></selectedcontent></button>' + '<option selected=javascript:1>' + '<img src=x onerror=alert(1)>x' + '</option></select>'; const clean = DOMPurify.sanitize(dirty); console.log(clean); document.body.innerHTML = clean;

Observed "sanitized" output in Chromium 148/WebKit 625:

<select><button><selectedcontent><img src="x" onerror="alert(1)">x</selectedcontent></button><option><img src="x">x</option></select>

After reinsertion, the browser updates the live DOM and strips the handler from the displayed clone, but the onerror has already fired:

<select><button><selectedcontent><img src="x">x</selectedcontent></button><option><img src="x">x</option></select>

Reproduced in Chromium and WebKit, but not Safari (not yet latest WebKit) or Firefox. Will likely change with browser support for selectedcontent.

Impact

This is a default-configuration DOMPurify sanitizer bypass resulting in XSS.

Applications are impacted if they sanitize attacker-controlled HTML with DOMPurify 3.4.4 using the string-input path and then insert the returned string into the page, for example with innerHTML.

CVSS v3:

  • Severity: High
  • Score: 8.2
  • AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:L/A:N

Frequently Asked Questions

A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.

CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) estimates technical severity, but it doesn't automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, affected asset criticality, known exploitation (proof-of-concept or in-the-wild), and whether compensating controls exist. A "Medium" CVSS on an exposed, production system can be more urgent than a "Critical" on an isolated, non-production host.

A vulnerability is the underlying weakness. An exploit is the method or code used to take advantage of it. A zero-day is a vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor or has no publicly available fix when attackers begin using it. In practice, risk increases sharply when exploitation becomes reliable or widespread.

Recurring findings usually come from incomplete Asset Discovery, inconsistent patch management, inherited images, and configuration drift. In modern environments, you also need to watch the software supply chain: dependencies, containers, build pipelines, and third-party services can reintroduce the same weakness even after you patch a single host. Unknown or unmanaged assets (often called Shadow IT) are a common reason the same issues resurface.

Use a simple, repeatable triage model: focus first on externally exposed assets, high-value systems (identity, VPN, email, production), vulnerabilities with known exploits, and issues that enable remote code execution or privilege escalation. Then enforce patch SLAs and track progress using consistent metrics so remediation is steady, not reactive.

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