Low severity · published Aug 12, 2026
CVE-2026-73491
Loofah `allowed_uri?` does not detect `javascript:` URIs split by named whitespace character references
2.3
CVSS
0.4%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
Loofah is a general library for manipulating and transforming HTML/XML documents and fragments, built on top of Nokogiri. From 2.25.0 until 2.25.2, Loofah::HTML5::Scrub.allowed_uri? does not reject javascript: URIs whose scheme is split or prefixed with the HTML5 named whitespace character references 	 or 
. CGI.unescapeHTML leaves those references intact, so allowed_uri? reports the URL safe even though a browser decodes and strips the tab or line feed and executes the resulting javascript: URL. This issue affects only callers that pass HTML-encoded strings directly to allowed_uri?; Loofah's default sanitize() path is not affected. This issue is fixed in version 2.25.2.
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.4% · higher than 34% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
LO
loofah · flavorjones
>= 2.25.0, < 2.25.2 · source: vendor
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-73491
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-73491
github.com
https://github.com/flavorjones/loofah/commit/5e91af861e3cdab47b91dd0b81f3afdfd13a5e19
github.com
https://github.com/flavorjones/loofah/pull/308
github.com
https://github.com/flavorjones/loofah/releases/tag/v2.25.2
github.com
https://github.com/flavorjones/loofah/security/advisories/GHSA-8whx-365g-h9vv
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