CVE-2016-10516 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.1) Cross-site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in werkzeug. A fix is available for werkzeug — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Pallets Werkzeug cross-site scripting vulnerability
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
Real-World Exposure
werkzeugReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects PyPI packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in the render_full function in debug/tbtools.py in the debugger in Pallets Werkzeug before 0.11.11 (as used in Pallets Flask and other products) allows remote attackers to inject arbitrary web script or HTML via a field that contains an exception message.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | werkzeug | all versions | 0.11.11pip install --upgrade 'werkzeug==0.11.11' |
Affected Products
werkzeugpalletsprojectsDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for werkzeug, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update werkzeug to 0.11.11 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2016-10516 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Escape or sanitise the affected output on the server side rather than relying on client-side filtering, and add a Content-Security-Policy that blocks inline script execution so injected markup cannot run even if it reaches the page.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Satellite 6.6 for RHEL 7 | ansiblerole-foreman_scap_client-0:0.0.3-1.el7sat | RHSA-2019:3172 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2016-10516 in your dependencies?
Find it across PyPI, including transitive dependencies.