CVE-2024-35621 is a medium-severity (CVSS 4.8) Cross-site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in getformwork/formwork. A fix is available for getformwork/formwork — see the affected versions and patch details below.
formwork Cross-site scripting vulnerability in Markdown fields
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-2024-35621.
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
getformwork/formworkReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Packagist packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Impact
Users with access to the administration panel with page editing permissions could insert <script> tags in markdown fields, which are exposed on the publicly accessible site pages, leading to potential XSS injections.
Patches
- Formwork 1.13.0 has been released with a patch that solves this vulnerability. Now the system config option
content.safe_mode(enabled by default) controls whether HTML tags and potentially dangerous links are escaped. This is configurable as in some cases more flexibility should be given. Panel users should be only a controlled group of editors, which cannot enable the option by themselves, and not a generic group. This mitigates the chance of introducing vulnerabilities. - Formwork 2.x (6adc302) adds a similar
content.safeModesystem option. Like Formwork 1.13.0, by default HTML tags and dangerous link are escaped. Even if enabled by an administrator, however,<script>and other dangerous tags are still converted to text, but secure tags are allowed.
References
https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2024-35621
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐘Packagist | getformwork/formwork | all versions | 1.13.0composer require getformwork/formwork:^1.13.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for getformwork/formwork, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update getformwork/formwork to 1.13.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2024-35621 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-2024-35621 in your dependencies?
Find it across Packagist, including transitive dependencies.