CVE-2021-41165 — ckeditor4
MEDIUMCVE-2021-41165 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.4) Cross-site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in ckeditor4. A fix is available for ckeditor4 — see the affected versions and patch details below.
HTML comments vulnerability allowing to execute JavaScript code
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-2021-41165 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 377,636 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
How broadly this vulnerability is actually deployed: weekly install volume shows current usage, and reverse-dependency count shows how many other packages break if it stays unpatched.
ckeditor4npmDescription
Affected packages
The vulnerability has been discovered in the core HTML processing module and may affect all plugins used by CKEditor 4.
Impact
A potential vulnerability has been discovered in CKEditor 4 HTML processing core module. The vulnerability allowed to inject malformed comments HTML bypassing content sanitization, which could result in executing JavaScript code. It affects all users using the CKEditor 4 at version < 4.17.0.
Patches
The problem has been recognized and patched. The fix will be available in version 4.17.0.
For more information
Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions or comments about this advisory.
Acknowledgements
The CKEditor 4 team would like to thank William Bowling (wbowling) for recognizing and reporting this vulnerability.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | ckeditor4 | all versions | 4.17.0npm install ckeditor4@4.17.0 |
| 🐘Packagist | ckeditor/ckeditor | all versions | 4.17.0composer require ckeditor/ckeditor:^4.17.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for ckeditor4, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update ckeditor4 to 4.17.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2021-41165 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-2021-41165 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2021-41165. 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-2021-41165 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2021-41165 across npm, Packagist dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.