CVE-2021-32696 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.3) Cross-site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in striptags. O3 Security confirms whether CVE-2021-32696 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
Passing in a non-string 'html' argument can lead to unsanitized output
Real-World Exposure
How broadly this vulnerability is actually deployed: weekly install volume shows current usage, a proxy for how much of the ecosystem is exposed.
striptagsnpmDescription
The npm package "striptags" is an implementation of PHP's strip_tags in Typescript. In striptags before version 3.2.0, a type-confusion vulnerability can cause striptags to concatenate unsanitized strings when an array-like object is passed in as the html parameter. This can be abused by an attacker who can control the shape of their input, e.g. if query parameters are passed directly into the function. This can lead to a XSS.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | striptags | all versions | 3.2.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for striptags. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update striptags to 3.2.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2021-32696 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 pinpoints whether CVE-2021-32696 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to CVE-2021-32696. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2021-32696 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2021-32696 across npm dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.