CVE-2018-1000162 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.1) Cross-site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in erusev/parsedown. A fix is available for erusev/parsedown — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Cross-site Scripting in Parsedown
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
erusev/parsedownReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Packagist packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Parsedown version prior to 1.7.0 contains a Cross Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in setMarkupEscaped for escaping HTML that can result in JavaScript code execution. This attack appears to be exploitable via specially crafted markdown that allows it to side step HTML escaping by breaking AST boundaries. This vulnerability appears to have been fixed in 1.7.0 and later.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐘Packagist | erusev/parsedown | all versions | 1.7.0composer require erusev/parsedown:^1.7.0 |
Affected Products
parsedownparsedownDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for erusev/parsedown, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update erusev/parsedown to 1.7.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2018-1000162 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2018-1000162 in your dependencies?
Find it across Packagist, including transitive dependencies.