How severe is GHSA-8rr6-2qw5-pc7r?

GHSA-8rr6-2qw5-pc7r has a CVSS score of 6.8/10, rated MEDIUM. Review your exposure and patch according to your risk tolerance.

Which packages are affected by GHSA-8rr6-2qw5-pc7r?

GHSA-8rr6-2qw5-pc7r affects the following packages: net.sourceforge.pmd:pmd-core (Maven). Ecosystems affected: Maven.

How do I fix GHSA-8rr6-2qw5-pc7r?

Update net.sourceforge.pmd:pmd-core to 7.22.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-8rr6-2qw5-pc7r is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

How do I detect GHSA-8rr6-2qw5-pc7r in my Maven dependencies?

Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for net.sourceforge.pmd:pmd-core. 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.

How do I mitigate GHSA-8rr6-2qw5-pc7r if there is no patch (or I can't update yet)?

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 does O3 Security protect against GHSA-8rr6-2qw5-pc7r?

O3 pinpoints whether GHSA-8rr6-2qw5-pc7r is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.

Is GHSA-8rr6-2qw5-pc7r actively exploited in the wild?

No public exploit code has been indexed for GHSA-8rr6-2qw5-pc7r yet. This does not mean the vulnerability cannot be exploited — absence of public exploits does not imply safety. Apply the recommended fix and use O3 Security to monitor your exposure.

What is the EPSS score for GHSA-8rr6-2qw5-pc7r?

GHSA-8rr6-2qw5-pc7r has an EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) score of 0.3%, placing it in the 21th percentile of all CVEs. EPSS is maintained by FIRST.org and estimates the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. This score indicates relatively lower exploitation probability, though the CVSS severity should still guide your patching priority.

What type of vulnerability is GHSA-8rr6-2qw5-pc7r?

GHSA-8rr6-2qw5-pc7r is classified as Cross-site Scripting (XSS) (CWE-79). This weakness type describe the underlying flaw category, which helps determine the potential impact and the right class of mitigation. This is a high-impact weakness class that often enables remote code execution or data exposure.

When was GHSA-8rr6-2qw5-pc7r published, and has it been updated?

GHSA-8rr6-2qw5-pc7r was published on February 28, 2026 and was last updated on February 28, 2026. Advisory data evolves as severity scores, affected ranges, and exploit intelligence are revised — always check the latest version of the advisory before acting.

☕ Maven

GHSA-8rr6-2qw5-pc7r

MEDIUM

PMD Designer has Stored XSS in VBHTMLRenderer and YAHTMLRenderer via unescaped violation messages

Also known asCVE-2026-28338

Published

Feb 28, 2026

Updated

Feb 28, 2026

Affected

1 pkg

Patched

1 / 1

Exploits

None indexed

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗

0.3%probability of exploitation in next 30 days

Lower Risk21th percentile+0.27%

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.

Blast Radius

1 pkg affected

☕net.sourceforge.pmd:pmd-core

Real-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Maven packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.

Description

Summary

PMD's vbhtml and yahtml report formats insert rule violation messages into HTML output without escaping. When PMD analyzes untrusted source code containing crafted string literals, the generated HTML report contains executable JavaScript that runs when opened in a browser.

While the default html format is not affected via rule violation messages (it correctly uses StringEscapeUtils.escapeHtml4()), it has a similar problem when rendering suppressed violations. The user supplied message (the reason for the suppression) was not escaped.

Details

VBHTMLRenderer.java line 71 appends rv.getDescription() directly into HTML:

sb.append("<td><font class=body>").append(rv.getDescription()).append("</font></td>");

YAHTMLRenderer.java lines 196–203 does the same via renderViolationRow():

private String renderViolationRow(String name, String value) {
    return "<tr><td><b>" + name + "</b></td>" + "<td>" + value + "</td></tr>";
}

Called at line 172:

out.print(renderViolationRow("Description:", violation.getDescription()));

The violation message originates from AvoidDuplicateLiteralsRule.java line 91, which embeds raw string literal values via first.toPrintableString(). This calls StringUtil.escapeJava() (line 476–480), which is a Java source escaper — it passes <, >, and & through unchanged because they are printable ASCII (0x20–0x7e).

By contrast, HTMLRenderer.java line 143 properly escapes:

String d = StringEscapeUtils.escapeHtml4(rv.getDescription());

PoC

Create a Java file with 4+ duplicate string literals containing an HTML payload:

public class Exploit {
    String a = "<img src=x onerror=alert(document.domain)>";
    String b = "<img src=x onerror=alert(document.domain)>";
    String c = "<img src=x onerror=alert(document.domain)>";
    String d = "<img src=x onerror=alert(document.domain)>";
}

Run PMD with the vbhtml format:

pmd check -R category/java/errorprone.xml -f vbhtml -d Exploit.java -r report.html

Open report.html in a browser. A JavaScript alert executes showing document.domain.

The generated HTML contains the unescaped tag:

<td><font class=body>The String literal "<img src=x onerror=alert(document.domain)>" appears 4 times in this file</font></td>

Tested and confirmed on PMD 7.22.0-SNAPSHOT (commit bcc646c53d).

Impact

Stored cross-site scripting (XSS). Affects CI/CD pipelines that run PMD with --format vbhtml or --format yahtml on untrusted source code (e.g., pull requests from external contributors) and expose the HTML report as a build artifact. JavaScript executes in the browser context of anyone who opens the report.

Practical impact is limited because vbhtml and yahtml are legacy formats rarely used in practice. The default html format has a similar issue with user messages from suppressed violations.

Fixes

See #6475: [core] Fix stored XSS in VBHTMLRenderer and YAHTMLRenderer

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed

Ecosystem	Package	Vulnerable range	Fix
☕Maven	`net.sourceforge.pmd:pmd-core`	all versions	7.22.0

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

Detect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for net.sourceforge.pmd:pmd-core. 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 net.sourceforge.pmd:pmd-core to 7.22.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-8rr6-2qw5-pc7r 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 GHSA-8rr6-2qw5-pc7r 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 GHSA-8rr6-2qw5-pc7r. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.

Frequently Asked Questions

### Summary PMD's `vbhtml` and `yahtml` report formats insert rule violation messages into HTML output without escaping. When PMD analyzes untrusted source code containing crafted string literals, the generated HTML report contains executable JavaScript that runs when opened in a browser. While the default `html` format is not affected via rule violation messages (it correctly uses `StringEscapeUtils.escapeHtml4()`), it has a similar problem when rendering suppressed violations. The user supplied message (the reason for the suppression) was not escaped. ### Details `VBHTMLRenderer.java` line

O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

Is GHSA-8rr6-2qw5-pc7r in your dependencies?

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