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GHSA-q4w9-x3rv-4c8j

Опубликовано: 15 окт. 2025
Источник: github
Github: Прошло ревью
CVSS4: 1.3

Описание

Mailgen has HTML Injection and XSS Filter Bypass in Plaintext Emails

Summary

An HTML injection vulnerability in plaintext emails generated by Mailgen has been discovered. Projecta are affected if the Mailgen.generatePlaintext(email) method is used and passed in user-generated content. The issue was discovered and reported by Edoardo Ottavianelli (@edoardottt).

Details

The following function (inside index.js) is intended to strip all HTML content to produce a plaintext string.

// Plaintext text e-mail generator Mailgen.prototype.generatePlaintext = function (params) { // Plaintext theme not cached? if (!this.cachedPlaintextTheme) { throw new Error('An error was encountered while loading the plaintext theme.'); } // Parse email params and get back an object with data to inject var ejsParams = this.parseParams(params); // Render the plaintext theme with ejs, injecting the data accordingly var output = ejs.render(this.cachedPlaintextTheme, ejsParams); // Definition of the <br /> tag as a regex pattern var breakTag = /(?:\<br\s*\/?\>)/g; var breakTagPattern = new RegExp(breakTag); // Check the plaintext for html break tag, maintains backwards compatiblity if (breakTagPattern.test(this.cachedPlaintextTheme)) { // Strip all linebreaks from the rendered plaintext output = output.replace(/(?:\r\n|\r|\n)/g, ''); // Replace html break tags with linebreaks output = output.replace(breakTag, '\n'); // Remove plaintext theme indentation (tabs or spaces in the beginning of each line) output = output.replace(/^(?: |\t)*/gm, ""); } // Decode HTML entities such as &copy; output = he.decode(output); // Strip all HTML tags from plaintext output output = output.replace(/<(.|\n)+?>/g, ''); // All done! return output; };

The process fails because it searches for HTML tags and attempts to strip them from the input. However, if the unicode encoded characters are present inside HTML tags, they are not removed. These encoded tags are then decoded later and become valid HTML content, which can lead to XSS vulnerabilities.

A valid payload is: <img src=x onerror=alert(1)\u2028>.

PoC

var Mailgen = require('mailgen'); // Configure mailgen by setting a theme and your product info var mailGenerator = new Mailgen({ theme: 'default', product: { // Appears in header & footer of e-mails name: 'Mailgen', link: 'https://mailgen.js/' // Optional product logo // logo: 'https://mailgen.js/img/logo.png' } }); var email = { body: { name: 'John <img src=x onerror=alert(document.body.innerHTML)\u2028> Appleseed', intro: 'Welcome to Mailgen! We\'re very excited to have you on board.', action: { instructions: 'To get started with Mailgen, please click here:', button: { color: '#22BC66', // Optional action button color text: 'Confirm your account', link: 'secret-link' } }, outro: 'Need help, or have questions? Just reply to this email, we\'d love to help.' } }; var emailText = mailGenerator.generatePlaintext(email); require('fs').writeFileSync('emailText.html', emailText, 'utf8');

Resulting output file (emailText.html):

Hi John <img src=x onerror=alert(document.body.innerHTML) > Appleseed, Welcome to Mailgen! We're very excited to have you on board. To get started with Mailgen, please click here: secret-link Need help, or have questions? Just reply to this email, we'd love to help. Yours truly, Mailgen © 2025 Mailgen. All rights reserved.

Impact

Depending on the context/environment where the plaintext message is used, if HTML is rendered and executed can result in arbitrary code execution in the browser of the victim (potentially stealing secrets or sensitive information contained in the message).

Credits

Edoardo Ottavianelli (@edoardottt)

Пакеты

Наименование

mailgen

npm
Затронутые версииВерсия исправления

<= 2.0.31

2.0.32

EPSS

Процентиль: 31%
0.00115
Низкий

1.3 Low

CVSS4

Дефекты

CWE-79

Связанные уязвимости

nvd
4 месяца назад

mailgen is a Node.js package that generates responsive HTML e-mails for sending transactional mail. Mailgen versions through 2.0.31 contain an HTML injection vulnerability in plaintext emails generated with the generatePlaintext method when user generated content is supplied. The plaintext generation code attempts to strip HTML tags using a regular expression and then decodes HTML entities, but tags that include certain Unicode line separator characters are not matched and removed. These encoded tags are later decoded into valid HTML content, allowing unexpected HTML to remain in output intended to be plaintext. Projects are affected if they call Mailgen.generatePlaintext with untrusted input and then render or otherwise process the returned string in a context where HTML is interpreted. This can lead to execution of attacker supplied script in the victim’s browser. Version 2.0.32 fixes the issue.

EPSS

Процентиль: 31%
0.00115
Низкий

1.3 Low

CVSS4

Дефекты

CWE-79