CVE-2026-28338PMD Designer has Stored XSS in VBHTMLRenderer and YAHTMLRenderer via unescaped violation messages
- 6.8MediumCVSS base score
- 0.35%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 71% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- YesPublic exploitsa reference or SSVC says so
Description
PMD is an extensible multilanguage static code analyzer. Prior to version 7.22.0, 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. Practical impact is limited because `vbhtml` and `yahtml` are legacy formats rarely used in practice. The default `html` format is properly escaped and not affected. Version 7.22.0 contains a fix for the issue.
Public exploit
An exploit or proof of concept is public: anyone can try it against an unpatched system. CISA's SSVC rates its exploitation: a proof of concept is public.
Timeline
ID reserved
By GitHub_M
- 1 day later
· 1 day later
Published
- 4 days later
· 4 days later
Record updated
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub_MCNA (assigner) | 3.1 | Medium6.8 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N |
| NVDNVD · Analyzed | 3.1 | Medium6.1 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.35% · top 71% of all CVEs (14 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: poc · Automatable: no · Technical impact: partial
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Medium 6.8.
Affected products
Affected packages
From reviewed advisories of the GitHub Advisory Database.
- Mavennet.sourceforge.pmd:pmd-coreGHSA-8rr6-2qw5-pc7r (opens in a new tab)
References
References3
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-2026-9069 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisory GHSA-8rr6-2qw5-pc7r (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-2026-28338)Record last updated .