GHSA-qc95-4862-92fh
Symfony has an HtmlSanitizer allowLinkHosts() / allowMediaHosts() Bypass via URL-Parser Differentials and <area> Misclassification
Details
### Description
`symfony/html-sanitizer` lets applications sanitise untrusted HTML. The configuration methods `allowLinkHosts([...])` and `allowLinkSchemes([...])` are intended to restrict `<a href>` targets to an allowlist of hosts/schemes; `allowMediaHosts()` / `allowMediaSchemes()` do the same for `<img src>` etc.
Three distinct bypasses allow a content author to smuggle off-allowlist URLs past these checks. First, `UrlSanitizer::parse()` parses the input following RFC-3986, while browsers follow the WHATWG URL Standard which normalises `\` to `/` before parsing the authority of "special" schemes; so an input like `https://evil\@trusted.com/` parses with host `trusted.com` server-side but navigates to `https://evil/` in the browser. Second, WHATWG collapses any run of `/` after the scheme into `//`, while RFC-3986 does not; so `https:/evil.com/` and `https:///evil.com/` parse as host-less (skipping the host allowlist) but resolve to `evil.com` in the browser. Third, `UrlAttributeSanitizer` checks `'a' === $element` to route to the link policy and falls through to the media policy otherwise, but `<area>` is a navigable hyperlink equivalent to `<a>`; so `<area href>` was sanitised against the media policy (which typically allows `data:` and may have no host allowlist), bypassing `allowLinkHosts()` / `allowLinkSchemes()` entirely.
### Resolution
`UrlSanitizer::sanitize()` now rejects URLs that contain a backslash or that use a special scheme (`http`, `https`, `ftp`, `ws`, `wss`) followed by a single slash or three slashes before parsing, eliminating the parser-differential bypasses. `UrlAttributeSanitizer` now applies the link policy to both `<a>` and `<area>` elements.
The patch for this issue is available [here](https://github.com/symfony/symfony/commit/d506b556d3d3906f3e8660ad82257ce87edbaac4) for branch 5.4.
### Credits
Symfony would like to thank Claude Mythos Preview (via Project Glasswing) for reporting the issue and providing the fix.
Are you affected?
Enter the version of the package you're using.
Affected packages
6.1.0 Fixed in: 6.4.40 composer require symfony/html-sanitizer:^6.4.40 7.0.0 Fixed in: 7.4.12 composer require symfony/html-sanitizer:^7.4.12 8.0.0 Fixed in: 8.0.12 composer require symfony/html-sanitizer:^8.0.12 6.1.0 Fixed in: 6.4.40 composer require symfony/symfony:^6.4.40 7.0.0 Fixed in: 7.4.12 composer require symfony/symfony:^7.4.12 8.0.0 Fixed in: 8.0.12 composer require symfony/symfony:^8.0.12 References
- https://github.com/symfony/symfony/security/advisories/GHSA-qc95-4862-92fh [WEB]
- https://github.com/FriendsOfPHP/security-advisories/blob/master/symfony/html-sanitizer/CVE-2026-45066.yaml [WEB]
- https://github.com/FriendsOfPHP/security-advisories/blob/master/symfony/symfony/CVE-2026-45066.yaml [WEB]
- https://github.com/symfony/symfony [PACKAGE]
- https://symfony.com/cve-2026-45066 [WEB]