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Fencer Intel
medium 6.1

CVE-2026-85271 json

Open edX Platform: Stored CSS Injection in Email Digest Notifications via Unsanitized Thread Title (incomplete patch of CVE-2026-42857)

published 3mo ago modified last mo. also EUVD-2026-83443 , GHSA-rv5w-f4r5-h77g

Unreviewed: the maintainers' own advisory

Published by the maintainers on their GitHub repository openedx/openedx-platform. GitHub has not reviewed it into the GitHub Advisory Database, so the affected packages and versions are the maintainers' word. Read the full advisory on GitHub.

cvss
6.1
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 29%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Open edX Platform enables the authoring and delivery of online learning at any scale. From Redwood until Ulmo and Verawood.1, the add_additional_attributes_to_notifications function in openedx/core/djangoapps/notifications/email/utils.py assigns notification content without sanitizing discussion-title values produced by get_notification_content in openedx/core/djangoapps/notifications/base_notification.py. An enrolled student can place CSS-capable markup in the post_title value supplied by lms/djangoapps/discussion/rest_api/discussions_notifications.py. Digest and batched-email rendering then passes that value through openedx/core/djangoapps/notifications/templates/notifications/digest_content.html as safe HTML, allowing email-open tracking and content spoofing or phishing when another learner opens a CSS-rendering client. The immediate-email path is not affected because it strips title markup and renders a separately sanitized body. This issue is fixed in Ulmo and Verawood.1.

Patch / fix

Is CVE-2026-85271 in your stack? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.

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CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
last mo.

Exploit prediction

0.35% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 29% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-11).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 6.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N

Affected products

  • openedx openedx-platform

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-79 Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

The maintainers of openedx/openedx-platform published their own advisory on GitHub. Reviewed sources take precedence over it.