CVE-2018-19787 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.1) Cross-site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in lxml. A fix is available for lxml — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation in LXML
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2018-19787.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2018-19787 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 377,238 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
lxmlReal-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
An issue was discovered in lxml before 4.2.5. lxml/html/clean.py in the lxml.html.clean module does not remove javascript: URLs that use escaping, allowing a remote attacker to conduct XSS attacks, as demonstrated by "j a v a s c r i p t:" in Internet Explorer. This is a similar issue to CVE-2014-3146.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | lxml | all versions | 4.2.5pip install --upgrade 'lxml==4.2.5' |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for lxml, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update lxml to 4.2.5 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2018-19787 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2018-19787 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2018-19787. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2018-19787 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2018-19787 across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.