GHSA-5qhf-9phg-95m2: Loofah ` URIs Split By Numeric Vulnerability

{
  "schema_version" : "1.4.0",
  "id" : "GHSA-5qhf-9phg-95m2",
  "modified" : "2026-07-21T22:03:11Z",
  "published" : "2026-07-21T22:03:11Z",
  "aliases" : [ ],
  "summary" : "Loofah `allowed_uri?` does not detect `javascript:` URIs split by numeric character references without semicolons",
  "details" : "## Summary\n\n`Loofah::HTML5::Scrub.allowed_uri?` does not correctly reject `javascript:` or `vbscript:` URIs when the scheme is split by a numeric character reference that has no trailing semicolon. A browser decodes such references and resolves the URL to an executable `javascript:` scheme, while `allowed_uri?` reports it safe.\n\nThis is a bypass of the fix for [GHSA-46fp-8f5p-pf2m](https://github.com/flavorjones/loofah/security/advisories/GHSA-46fp-8f5p-pf2m), which handled numeric character references with a trailing `;` (`	`, `
`, `
`) but did not cover the forms without semicolons.\n\n## Details\n\n`allowed_uri?` decodes HTML entities with `CGI.unescapeHTML`, which decodes numeric character references only when they carry a trailing `;`. A reference without a semicolon such as `&#58` (colon) or `&#9` (tab) is left literal, so the scheme-detection check finds no scheme, and the method falls through to its scheme-less path and returns `true`.\n\nA browser, however, decodes numeric character references even without a trailing semicolon. An encoded colon such as `&#58` becomes the `:` scheme separator, so `javascript&#58alert(1)` resolves to `javascript:alert(1)`. Encoded whitespace such as `&#9` (tab) is decoded and then stripped from the URL, rejoining the surrounding text, so `java&#9script:alert(1)` also resolves to `javascript:alert(1)`. In both cases the URL executes while `allowed_uri?` approved it as safe.\n\nNote that Loofah's default `sanitize()` path is **not** affected, because Nokogiri decodes or entity-escapes HTML entities during parsing before Loofah evaluates the URI protocol. This issue only affects callers of the public `allowed_uri?` string-level helper that pass it HTML-encoded strings.\n\n## Impact\n\nCallers that validate a user-controlled URL with `Loofah::HTML5::Scrub.allowed_uri?` and then render the approved value into an `href` or other browser-interpreted URI attribute may be vulnerable to cross-site scripting (XSS). This includes applications that call `allowed_uri?` directly, as well as higher-level features built on top of it, such as Action Text 8.2's markdown link validation.\n\n## Mitigation\n\nUpgrade to Loofah >= 2.25.2.\n\n## Credit\n\nResponsibly reported by GitHub user @MoonFuji.",
  "severity" : [ {
    "type" : "CVSS_V4",
    "score" : "CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:N/SC:L/SI:L/SA:N"
  } ],
  "affected" : [ {
    "package" : {
      "ecosystem" : "RubyGems",
      "name" : "loofah"
    },
    "ranges" : [ {
      "type" : "ECOSYSTEM",
      "events" : [ {
        "introduced" : "2.25.0"
      }, {
        "fixed" : "2.25.2"
      } ]
    } ]
  } ],
  "references" : [ {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/flavorjones/loofah/security/advisories/GHSA-5qhf-9phg-95m2"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/flavorjones/loofah/commit/f1be9d893b5a8dd79240441a912d8897e74c38c0"
  }, {
    "type" : "PACKAGE",
    "url" : "https://github.com/flavorjones/loofah"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/flavorjones/loofah/releases/tag/v2.25.2"
  } ],
  "database_specific" : {
    "cwe_ids" : [ "CWE-184", "CWE-79" ],
    "severity" : "LOW",
    "github_reviewed" : true,
    "github_reviewed_at" : "2026-07-21T22:03:11Z",
    "nvd_published_at" : null
  }
}