GHSA-fm7p-gw32-828p is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.3) CWE-116 vulnerability in mathlive. A fix is available for mathlive — see the affected versions and patch details below.
mathlive's Lack of Escaping of HTML allows for XSS
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.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for GHSA-fm7p-gw32-828p.
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
GHSA-fm7p-gw32-828p 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.
mathlivenpmDescription
Summary
Despite the 0.104.0 patch escaping attribute-bearing constructs (\htmlData, \href), text-content reflection was missed. The \text{}, \mbox{} commands accept arbitrary characters in their body and emit them raw and unescaped into both the HTML markup and the MathML output, leading to XSS.
Details
Box.toMarkup at src/core/box.ts:356 concatenates this.value into the rendered span without HTML-escaping. In text mode any literal character (<, >, &, ") is wrapped into a TextAtom whose value is the raw codepoint and lands in the markup unchanged. The MathML serializer at src/formats/atom-to-math-ml.ts is independently broken: xmlEscape deliberately omits the & rule, and scanText, case 'text', and the mode === 'text' early return all emit atom.value raw.
Both outputs flow into innerHTML sinks via the public API. <math-span> / <math-div> (src/public/math-static-elements.ts:331,407) bypass MathfieldElement.createHTML entirely. The editor and SSR paths route through createHTML, but its default value is the identity function (src/public/mathfield-element.ts:789).
PoC
- Go to https://mathlive.io/mathfield/demo/
- open DevTools console and paste:
const s = document.createElement('math-span');
s.style.display = 'block';
s.textContent = '\\text{<img src=x onerror=alert(1)>}';
document.body.appendChild(s);
s.scrollIntoView();
Equivalent payloads: \mbox{<img src=x onerror=alert(1)>}
or
import { convertLatexToMarkup } from 'mathlive';
document.body.innerHTML = convertLatexToMarkup('\\text{<img src=x onerror=alert(1)>}');
Impact
MathLive users who render untrusted mathematical expressions can encounter malicious input that runs arbitrary JavaScript.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | mathlive | all versions | 0.110.0npm install mathlive@0.110.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for mathlive, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update mathlive to 0.110.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-fm7p-gw32-828p 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 GHSA-fm7p-gw32-828p can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-fm7p-gw32-828p. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-fm7p-gw32-828p in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-fm7p-gw32-828p across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.