CVE-2026-28338 | PMD Designer has Stored XSS in VBHTMLRenderer and YAHTMLRenderer via unescaped violation messages

Exp

PMD is an extensible multilanguage static code analyzer. Prior to version 7.22.0, PMD's `vbhtml` and `yahtml` report formats insert rule violation messages into HTML output without escaping. When PMD analyzes untrusted source code containing crafted string literals, the generated HTML report contains executable JavaScript that runs when opened in a browser. Practical impact is limited because `vbhtml` and `yahtml` are legacy formats rarely used in practice. The default `html` format is properly escaped and not affected. Version 7.22.0 contains a fix for the issue.

Published: 2026-02-27 Last update: 2026-03-03 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Analyzed，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2026-28338 is rated Exploit Available (50/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.30%). 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-2026-28338

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

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2026-28338

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 2026-06-15 0.03% 0.30% +0.27%
2 2026-02-28 — 0.03% —

Full EPSS history (2 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2026-28338

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
6.8 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/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:H)
Even with access, the exploit needs extra luck, timing, or a fussy environment to actually work.
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:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 1.6 5.2 [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-2026-28338

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2026-28338

GHSA-8rr6-2qw5-pc7r · Severity: medium · Ecosystem: maven — PMD Designer has Stored XSS in VBHTMLRenderer and YAHTMLRenderer via unescaped violation messages

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2026-28338

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
pmd_project pmd < 7.22.0 cpe:2.3:a:pmd_project:pmd:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2026-28338

cvelogic Threat Intelligence