CVE-2026-22028 | Preact has JSON VNode Injection issue

Exp

Preact, a lightweight web development framework, JSON serialization protection to prevent Virtual DOM elements from being constructed from arbitrary JSON. A regression introduced in Preact 10.26.5 caused this protection to be softened. In applications where values from JSON payloads are assumed to be strings and passed unmodified to Preact as children, a specially-crafted JSON payload could be constructed that would be incorrectly treated as a valid VNode. When this chain of failures occurs it can result in HTML injection, which can allow arbitrary script execution if not mitigated by CSP or other means. Applications using affected Preact versions are vulnerable if they meet all of the following conditions: first, pass unmodified, unsanitized values from user-modifiable data sources (APIs, databases, local storage, etc.) directly into the render tree; second assume these values are strings but the data source could return actual JavaScript objects instead of JSON strings; and third, the data source either fails to perform type sanitization AND blindly stores/returns raw objects interchangeably with strings, OR is compromised (e.g., poisoned local storage, filesystem, or database). Versions 10.26.10, 10.27.3, and 10.28.2 patch the issue. The patch versions restore the previous strict equality checks that prevent JSON-parsed objects from being treated as valid VNodes. Other mitigations are available for those who cannot immediately upgrade. Validate input types, cast or validate network data, sanitize external data, and use Content Security Policy (CSP).

Published: 2026-01-08 Last update: 2026-01-12 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Analyzed，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2026-22028 is rated Exploit Available (50/100): CVSS High severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.05%). 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-2026-22028

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

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2026-22028

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 2026-02-19 0.04% 0.05% +0.01%
2 2026-01-13 0.07% 0.04% -0.03%
3 2026-01-09 — 0.07% —

Full EPSS history (3 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2026-22028

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.2 4.0 HIGH
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:U/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 Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and stable.
Attack requirements (AT:P)
Additional preconditions must be present for exploitation.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No privileges are required.
User interaction (UI:N)
No user interaction is required.
Vulnerable system confidentiality impact (VC:H)
High confidentiality impact on the vulnerable system.
Vulnerable system integrity impact (VI:H)
High integrity impact on the vulnerable system.
Vulnerable system availability impact (VA:H)
High availability impact on the vulnerable system.
Subsequent system confidentiality impact (SC:N)
No confidentiality impact on subsequent systems.
Subsequent system integrity impact (SI:N)
No integrity impact on subsequent systems.
Subsequent system availability impact (SA:N)
No availability impact on subsequent systems.
Exploit maturity (threat) (E:U)
Unreported: no public PoC, no reported exploitation, and no known simplification tools.
Confidentiality requirement (CR:X)
Not defined: insufficient information; scoring treats this like High (worst case).
Integrity requirement (IR:X)
Not defined: insufficient information; scoring treats this like High (worst case).
Availability requirement (AR:X)
Not defined: insufficient information; scoring treats this like High (worst case).
Modified attack vector (MAV:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base Attack Vector (AV).
Modified attack complexity (MAC:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base Attack Complexity (AC).
Modified attack requirements (MAT:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base Attack Requirements (AT).
Modified privileges required (MPR:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base Privileges Required (PR).
Modified user interaction (MUI:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base User Interaction (UI).
Modified vulnerable system confidentiality impact (MVC:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base VC metric.
Modified vulnerable system integrity impact (MVI:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base VI metric.
Modified vulnerable system availability impact (MVA:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base VA metric.
Modified subsequent system confidentiality impact (MSC:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base SC metric.
Modified subsequent system integrity impact (MSI:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base SI metric.
Modified subsequent system availability impact (MSA:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base SA metric.
Safety (supplemental) (S:X)
Not evaluated.
Automatable (supplemental) (AU:X)
Not evaluated.
Recovery (supplemental) (R:X)
Not evaluated.
Value density (supplemental) (V:X)
Not evaluated.
Vulnerability response effort (supplemental) (RE:X)
Not evaluated.
Provider urgency (supplemental) (U:X)
Not evaluated.
 — — [email protected]
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]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2026-22028

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2026-22028

GHSA-36hm-qxxp-pg3m · Severity: high · Ecosystem: npm — Preact has JSON VNode Injection issue

OS Trackers for CVE-2026-22028

vendor priority summary link
debian unimportant CVE-2026-22028 unimportant priority: Debian including 1 source packages (node-preact), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2026-22028
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-22028
suse high CVE-2026-22028 severity important: SUSE including 5 source package names (spacewalk-base, spacewalk-base-minimal, spacewalk-base-minimal-config, spacewalk-html, spacewalk-web), 8 product×package rows across 2 product lines (SUSE Manager Proxy LTS 4.3, SUSE Manager Server LTS 4.3): Known Not Affected 8. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-22028/
ubuntu medium CVE-2026-22028 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (node-preact), 7 status rows across 7 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, plucky, questing, upstream): needs-triage 6, ignored 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2026-22028

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2026-22028

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
preactjs preact >= 10.26.5, < 10.26.10 cpe:2.3:a:preactjs:preact:*:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
preactjs preact >= 10.27.0, < 10.27.3 cpe:2.3:a:preactjs:preact:*:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
preactjs preact >= 10.28.0, < 10.28.2 cpe:2.3:a:preactjs:preact:*:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*

References for CVE-2026-22028

cvelogic Threat Intelligence