CVE-2023-3481 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.1) CWE-80 vulnerability in critters. A fix is available for critters — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Critters Cross-site Scripting Vulnerability
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-2023-3481.
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
How broadly this vulnerability is actually deployed: weekly install volume shows current usage, a proxy for how much of the ecosystem is exposed.
crittersnpmDescription
Impact
Critters version 0.0.17-0.0.19 have an issue when parsing the HTML which leads to a potential cross-site scripting (XSS) bug.
Patches
The bug has been fixed in v0.0.20.
Workarounds
Upgrading Critters version to >0.0.20 is the easiest fix. This is a non breaking version upgrade so we recommend all users to use v0.0.20.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | critters | ≥ 0.0.17&&< 0.0.20 | 0.0.20npm install critters@0.0.20 |
Affected Products
crittersgoogleDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for critters, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update critters to 0.0.20 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-3481 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-2023-3481 in your dependencies?
Find it across npm, including transitive dependencies.