Express XSS Sanitizer is Express 4.x and 5.x middleware which sanitizes user input data (in req.body, req.query, req.headers and req.params) to prevent Cross Site Scripting (XSS) attack. A vulnerability has been identified in versions prior to 2.0.2 where restrictive sanitization configurations are silently ignored. In version 2.0.2, the validation logic has been updated to respect explicitly provided empty configurations. Now, if allowedTags or allowedAttributes are provided (even if empty), they are passed directly to sanitize-html without being overridden.
Advisories
Source ID Title
Github GHSA Github GHSA GHSA-3843-rr4g-m8jq Express XSS Sanitizer: allowedTags/allowedAttributes bypass leads to permissive sanitization (XSS risk)
Fixes

Solution

No solution given by the vendor.


Workaround

No workaround given by the vendor.

History

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 03:15:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description Express XSS Sanitizer is Express 4.x and 5.x middleware which sanitizes user input data (in req.body, req.query, req.headers and req.params) to prevent Cross Site Scripting (XSS) attack. A vulnerability has been identified in versions prior to 2.0.2 where restrictive sanitization configurations are silently ignored. In version 2.0.2, the validation logic has been updated to respect explicitly provided empty configurations. Now, if allowedTags or allowedAttributes are provided (even if empty), they are passed directly to sanitize-html without being overridden.
Title Express XSS Sanitizer: allowedTags/allowedAttributes bypass leads to permissive sanitization (XSS risk)
Weaknesses CWE-183
CWE-79
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 8.2, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:N'}


Projects

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cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: GitHub_M

Published:

Updated: 2026-03-27T21:29:19.759Z

Reserved: 2026-03-24T22:20:06.210Z

Link: CVE-2026-33979

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-03-27T22:16:22.433

Modified: 2026-03-27T22:16:22.433

Link: CVE-2026-33979

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

No data.

Weaknesses