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ip-address has XSS in Address6 HTML-emitting methods

Moderate severity GitHub Reviewed Published Apr 27, 2026 in beaugunderson/ip-address • Updated May 5, 2026

Package

npm ip-address (npm)

Affected versions

<= 10.1.0

Patched versions

10.1.1

Description

Summary

Address6.group() and Address6.link() do not HTML-escape attacker-controlled content before embedding it in the HTML strings they return, and AddressError.parseMessage (emitted by the Address6 constructor for invalid input) can contain unescaped attacker-controlled content in one branch. An application that (1) passes untrusted input to Address6 and (2) renders the output of these methods, or the thrown error's parseMessage, as HTML (e.g. via innerHTML) is vulnerable to cross-site scripting. A related issue in v6.helpers.spanAll() produced malformed markup but was not exploitable; it is hardened in the same release for consistency.

Details

Four related issues were identified and fixed together:

  1. Address6.group(): zone ID injection. The Address6 constructor stores the raw input (including any IPv6 zone ID) in this.address before zone stripping. group() then passed this.address to helpers.simpleGroup(), which wrapped each :-separated segment in a <span> element without HTML-escaping the content. A zone ID containing HTML markup was embedded verbatim.
  2. Address6.link({ prefix, className }): attribute-value injection. link() concatenated user-supplied prefix and className into the href="…" and class="…" attributes without escaping. A caller passing untrusted content through these options could inject event handlers (e.g. onmouseover) and achieve XSS.
  3. Address6 constructor: leading-zero IPv4 error path. The leading-zero branch in parse4in6() built AddressError.parseMessage by concatenating the raw address through String.replace(). Because parse4in6() runs before the bad-character check, any characters in the groups preceding the IPv4 suffix flowed into the error's HTML unescaped. Consumers who render parseMessage as HTML (its documented purpose — it already contains <span class="parse-error"> markup) could be XSS'd by a crafted input such as <img src=x onerror=alert(1)>:10.0.01.1.
  4. v6.helpers.spanAll(): attribute-value injection (defense in depth). spanAll() embedded each character of its input into a class="digit value-${n} …" attribute without escaping. Because split('') limits n to a single character this was not exploitable in practice, but it produced malformed markup and is fixed for consistency.

Affected Versions

All versions up to and including 10.1.0.

Patched Version

10.1.1.

Impact

Real-world exposure is believed to be extremely limited. Analysis of all 425 dependent npm packages as well as GitHub code search found zero consumers of group(), link(), or spanAll(): these HTML-emitting surfaces appear to be unused across published npm packages and public repositories. Applications using only the address-parsing and comparison APIs (isValid, correctForm, isInSubnet, bigInt, etc.) are not affected.

Consumers who do render the output of group(), link(), spanAll(), or AddressError.parseMessage as HTML against untrusted input should upgrade.

PoC

const { Address6 } = require('ip-address');
const addr = new Address6('fe80::1%<img src=x onerror=alert(1)>');
document.body.innerHTML = addr.group();  // fires the onerror handler in 10.1.0

Workarounds

If users cannot upgrade immediately:

  • Do not pass untrusted input to the Address6 constructor, or
  • Never render the output of group(), link(), or spanAll(), nor the parseMessage field of any thrown AddressError, as HTML; treat these values as text only, or run them through DOMPurify before inserting into the DOM (DOMPurify's default configuration preserves the library's intended <span> wrapping while stripping any injected event handlers), or
  • Validate input with Address6.isValid() and reject anything that contains a zone identifier (a % character) or characters outside [0-9a-fA-F:/] before passing it to the constructor.

Lack of separate CVEs

Given the evidence that these methods are not used, and given that they are all of the same construction, maintainers do not think it's relevant or useful to create a separate CVE for each library method.

Credit

ip-address thanks @scovetta for reporting this issue.

References

@beaugunderson beaugunderson published to beaugunderson/ip-address Apr 27, 2026
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database May 5, 2026
Reviewed May 5, 2026
Last updated May 5, 2026

Severity

Moderate

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v4 base metrics

Exploitability Metrics
Attack Vector Network
Attack Complexity Low
Attack Requirements None
Privileges Required None
User interaction Passive
Vulnerable System Impact Metrics
Confidentiality Low
Integrity Low
Availability None
Subsequent System Impact Metrics
Confidentiality None
Integrity None
Availability None

CVSS v4 base metrics

Exploitability Metrics
Attack Vector: This metric reflects the context by which vulnerability exploitation is possible. This metric value (and consequently the resulting severity) will be larger the more remote (logically, and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerable system. The assumption is that the number of potential attackers for a vulnerability that could be exploited from across a network is larger than the number of potential attackers that could exploit a vulnerability requiring physical access to a device, and therefore warrants a greater severity.
Attack Complexity: This metric captures measurable actions that must be taken by the attacker to actively evade or circumvent existing built-in security-enhancing conditions in order to obtain a working exploit. These are conditions whose primary purpose is to increase security and/or increase exploit engineering complexity. A vulnerability exploitable without a target-specific variable has a lower complexity than a vulnerability that would require non-trivial customization. This metric is meant to capture security mechanisms utilized by the vulnerable system.
Attack Requirements: This metric captures the prerequisite deployment and execution conditions or variables of the vulnerable system that enable the attack. These differ from security-enhancing techniques/technologies (ref Attack Complexity) as the primary purpose of these conditions is not to explicitly mitigate attacks, but rather, emerge naturally as a consequence of the deployment and execution of the vulnerable system.
Privileges Required: This metric describes the level of privileges an attacker must possess prior to successfully exploiting the vulnerability. The method by which the attacker obtains privileged credentials prior to the attack (e.g., free trial accounts), is outside the scope of this metric. Generally, self-service provisioned accounts do not constitute a privilege requirement if the attacker can grant themselves privileges as part of the attack.
User interaction: This metric captures the requirement for a human user, other than the attacker, to participate in the successful compromise of the vulnerable system. This metric determines whether the vulnerability can be exploited solely at the will of the attacker, or whether a separate user (or user-initiated process) must participate in some manner.
Vulnerable System Impact Metrics
Confidentiality: This metric measures the impact to the confidentiality of the information managed by the VULNERABLE SYSTEM due to a successfully exploited vulnerability. Confidentiality refers to limiting information access and disclosure to only authorized users, as well as preventing access by, or disclosure to, unauthorized ones.
Integrity: This metric measures the impact to integrity of a successfully exploited vulnerability. Integrity refers to the trustworthiness and veracity of information. Integrity of the VULNERABLE SYSTEM is impacted when an attacker makes unauthorized modification of system data. Integrity is also impacted when a system user can repudiate critical actions taken in the context of the system (e.g. due to insufficient logging).
Availability: This metric measures the impact to the availability of the VULNERABLE SYSTEM resulting from a successfully exploited vulnerability. While the Confidentiality and Integrity impact metrics apply to the loss of confidentiality or integrity of data (e.g., information, files) used by the system, this metric refers to the loss of availability of the impacted system itself, such as a networked service (e.g., web, database, email). Since availability refers to the accessibility of information resources, attacks that consume network bandwidth, processor cycles, or disk space all impact the availability of a system.
Subsequent System Impact Metrics
Confidentiality: This metric measures the impact to the confidentiality of the information managed by the SUBSEQUENT SYSTEM due to a successfully exploited vulnerability. Confidentiality refers to limiting information access and disclosure to only authorized users, as well as preventing access by, or disclosure to, unauthorized ones.
Integrity: This metric measures the impact to integrity of a successfully exploited vulnerability. Integrity refers to the trustworthiness and veracity of information. Integrity of the SUBSEQUENT SYSTEM is impacted when an attacker makes unauthorized modification of system data. Integrity is also impacted when a system user can repudiate critical actions taken in the context of the system (e.g. due to insufficient logging).
Availability: This metric measures the impact to the availability of the SUBSEQUENT SYSTEM resulting from a successfully exploited vulnerability. While the Confidentiality and Integrity impact metrics apply to the loss of confidentiality or integrity of data (e.g., information, files) used by the system, this metric refers to the loss of availability of the impacted system itself, such as a networked service (e.g., web, database, email). Since availability refers to the accessibility of information resources, attacks that consume network bandwidth, processor cycles, or disk space all impact the availability of a system.
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:P/VC:L/VI:L/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

EPSS score

Weaknesses

Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')

The product does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes user-controllable input before it is placed in output that is used as a web page that is served to other users. Learn more on MITRE.

CVE ID

CVE-2026-42338

GHSA ID

GHSA-v2v4-37r5-5v8g

Source code

Credits

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