CVE-2022-23518 | Improper neutralization of data URIs allows XSS in rails-html-sanitizer

Exp

rails-html-sanitizer is responsible for sanitizing HTML fragments in Rails applications. Versions >= 1.0.3, < 1.4.4 are vulnerable to cross-site scripting via data URIs when used in combination with Loofah >= 2.1.0. This issue is patched in version 1.4.4.

Published: 2022-12-14 Last update: 2025-11-03 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2022-23518 is rated Exploit Available (56.4/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.25%). 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2022-23518

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2022-23518

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-03-04 0.14% 0.25% +0.11%
2 2026-03-01 0.30% 0.14% -0.15%
3 2026-02-04 — 0.30% —

Full EPSS history (31 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2022-23518

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
6.1 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
Scope (S:C)
Breaking this can reach past the original component and bite other resources—bigger blast radius.
Confidentiality (C:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
Integrity (I:L)
Attackers could change some data, but it’s limited—not everything goes.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 2.8 2.7 [email protected]
6.1 3.0 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
Scope (S:C)
Breaking this can reach past the original component and bite other resources—bigger blast radius.
Confidentiality (C:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
Integrity (I:L)
Attackers could change some data, but it’s limited—not everything goes.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 2.8 2.7 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2022-23518

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2022-23518

GHSA-mcvf-2q2m-x72m · Severity: medium · Ecosystem: rubygems — Improper neutralization of data URIs may allow XSS in rails-html-sanitizer

OS Trackers for CVE-2022-23518

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2022-23518 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (ruby-rails-html-sanitizer), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2022-23518
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2022-23518
suse high — https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2022-23518/
ubuntu medium CVE-2022-23518 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (ruby-rails-html-sanitizer), 13 status rows across 13 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): needs-triage 7, ignored 6. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2022-23518

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2022-23518

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
rubyonrails rails_html_sanitizers >= 1.0.3, < 1.4.4 cpe:2.3:a:rubyonrails:rails_html_sanitizers:*:*:*:*:*:rails:*:*
debian debian_linux 10.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:10.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
loofah_project loofah >= 2.1.0, < 2.19.1 cpe:2.3:a:loofah_project:loofah:*:*:*:*:*:ruby:*:*

References for CVE-2022-23518

cvelogic Threat Intelligence