CVE-2022-39353 — xmldom
CRITICALCVE-2022-39353 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.4) Improper Input Validation vulnerability in xmldom. 1 public exploit reference exists, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for xmldom — see the affected versions and patch details below.
xmldom allows multiple root nodes in a DOM
Exploitation Status
Proof-of-concept exploit code exists
- CISA’s SSVC triage found public proof-of-concept exploit code for this CVE, though no confirmed active exploitation.
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2022-39353.
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-2022-39353 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 377,166 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.
xmldomnpm@xmldom/xmldomnpmDescription
xmldom is a pure JavaScript W3C standard-based (XML DOM Level 2 Core) DOMParser and XMLSerializer module. xmldom parses XML that is not well-formed because it contains multiple top level elements, and adds all root nodes to the childNodes collection of the Document, without reporting any error or throwing. This breaks the assumption that there is only a single root node in the tree, which led to issuance of CVE-2022-39299 as it is a potential issue for dependents. Update to @xmldom/xmldom@~0.7.7, @xmldom/xmldom@~0.8.4 (dist-tag latest) or @xmldom/xmldom@>=0.9.0-beta.4 (dist-tag next). As a workaround, please one of the following approaches depending on your use case: instead of searching for elements in the whole DOM, only search in the documentElementor reject a document with a document that has more then 1 childNode.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | xmldom | all versions | No fix |
| 📦npm | @xmldom/xmldom | all versions | 0.7.7npm install @xmldom/xmldom@0.7.7 |
| 📦npm | @xmldom/xmldom | ≥ 0.8.0&&< 0.8.4 | 0.8.4npm install @xmldom/xmldom@0.8.4 |
| 📦npm | @xmldom/xmldom | ≥ 0.9.0-beta.1&&< 0.9.0-beta.4 | 0.9.0-beta.4npm install @xmldom/xmldom@0.9.0-beta.4 |
Research use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for xmldom, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
No patched version of xmldom has shipped for CVE-2022-39353 yet. Where your build allows, override or pin the dependency away from the vulnerable range, and apply any maintainer-recommended mitigation.
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-2022-39353 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2022-39353. 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-2022-39353 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2022-39353 across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.