XSS in Hbs

CVE-2026-16231

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.

Vulnerability class: XSS (Cross-Site Scripting)

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 8.1 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.002 (12.4th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 12th percentile — 12.4% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2026-16231: held from 0.002 to 0.002.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.002 · newest: 0.002 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-16231?
CVE-2026-16231 is a high-severity vulnerability in Hbs, classified under Cross-site Scripting. CVSS score: 8.1/10. Published 2026-08-25.
How severe is CVE-2026-16231?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 8.1 out of 10.