CVE-2026-16231hbs vulnerable to XSS via registerAsyncHelper output-escaping bypass
- 8.1HighCVSS base score
- 0.40%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 65% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- NonePublic exploitsnone known yet
Description
hbs is an Express view engine that wraps Handlebars. Its registerAsyncHelper API bypasses Handlebars' automatic HTML escaping: an async helper returns an opaque placeholder during the first render pass, so the double-brace expression escapes only the placeholder, and after rendering hbs substitutes the placeholder with the raw callback return value without escaping it, across the cached, uncached, and layout render paths. An application that passes attacker-influenced data, for example user-supplied content from a database, into an async helper callback can therefore have arbitrary HTML and JavaScript injected into the server-rendered page, resulting in stored or reflected cross-site scripting. Versions 2.1.0 through 4.2.1 are affected, and the issue is fixed in 4.3.0, which HTML-escapes async helper output. Applications that intentionally emit raw HTML from an async helper can opt in explicitly with hbs.SafeString. Users should upgrade to 4.3.0.
Timeline
ID reserved
By openjs
- 38 days later
· 38 days later
Published
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| openjsCNA (assigner) | 3.1 | High8.1 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N |
| NVDNVD · Analyzed | 3.1 | High8.1 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.40% · top 65% of all CVEs (15 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: total
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: High 8.1.
Affected products
References
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2026-65392 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2026-16231)Record last updated .