The prosemirrortohtml gem is vulnerable to Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks through malicious HTML attribute values. While tag content is properly escaped, attribute values are not, allowing attackers to inject arbitrary JavaScript code.
Who is impacted: - Any application using prosemirrortohtml to convert ProseMirror documents to HTML - Applications that process user-generated ProseMirror content are at highest risk - End users viewing the rendered HTML output could have malicious JavaScript executed in their browsers
Attack vectors include:
- href attributes with javascript: protocol: <a href="javascript:alert(document.cookie)">
- Event handlers: <div onclick="maliciousCode()">
- onerror attributes on images: <img src=x onerror="alert('XSS')">
- Other HTML attributes that can execute JavaScript
A fix is currently in development. Users should upgrade to version 0.2.1 or later once released.
The patch escapes all HTML attribute values using CGI.escapeHTML to prevent injection attacks.
Until a patched version is available, users can implement one or more of these mitigations:
Sanitize output: Pass the HTML output through a sanitization library like Sanitize or Loofah:
html = ProsemirrorToHtml.render(document)
safe_html = Sanitize.fragment(html, Sanitize::Config::RELAXED)
Implement Content Security Policy (CSP): Add strict CSP headers to prevent inline JavaScript execution:
Content-Security-Policy: default-src 'self'; script-src 'self'
Input validation: If possible, validate and sanitize ProseMirror documents before conversion to prevent malicious content from entering the system.
{
"cwe_ids": [
"CWE-79"
],
"github_reviewed": true,
"nvd_published_at": null,
"severity": "HIGH",
"github_reviewed_at": "2025-11-06T15:44:35Z"
}