# CVE-2026-73161: cti-transmute Conversion Table Allows XSS via Unescaped Cell Content During Search Highlighting

> Attackers can inject malicious HTML via unescaped conversion table content in search highlighting, leading to XSS in MISP environments.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.1 (`CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:P/VC:L/VI:L/VA:N/SC:L/SI:L/SA:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** A user has to click or open something
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 11 Aug 2026
- **Updated:** 11 Aug 2026
- **Also known as:** GHSA-9p42-c923-p9c9

## What is CVE-2026-73161?

CVE-2026-73161 is a medium-severity cross-site scripting vulnerability in MISP cti-transmute, published on 11 Aug 2026. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

### Official description

Affected versions of cti-transmute improperly handle conversion-table values passed through the search highlighting feature. The highlight() function previously returned the underlying text directly when no search query was supplied, or performed a regex replacement that inserted <mark> tags without first escaping the original content. Because the resulting value is used by an HTML-rendering sink, malicious markup contained in conversion data could be interpreted as HTML rather than displayed as text.

The fix introduces a shared highlightMatches() helper that first converts special characters such as <, >, &, and quotes into HTML entities. Only after escaping does the code insert the application-controlled <mark> element used for search highlighting.

Weakness: CWE-79 (Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation), CWE-116 (Improper Encoding or Escaping of Output)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-73161?


## How do I fix CVE-2026-73161?

No fix has been published for CVE-2026-73161 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2026-73161 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-73161 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-73161 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-73161 is a medium-severity cross-site scripting vulnerability in MISP cti-transmute, published on 11 Aug 2026. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-73161 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: MISP cti-transmute. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-73161/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-73161/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-73161
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-73161
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-73161

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-73161/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.