What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities
CVE-2023-26486: Vega `scale` expression function cross site scripting
- Severity: medium (CVSS 6.1 v3.1)
- Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
- EPSS: 0.8% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
- Public exploit or detection template: yes
- Published: 2023-03-04 · updated 2026-06-17
- Weakness: CWE-79
Description
Vega is a visualization grammar, a declarative format for creating, saving, and sharing interactive visualization designs. The Vega `scale` expression function has the ability to call arbitrary functions with a single controlled argument. The scale expression function passes a user supplied argument group to getScale, which is then used as if it were an internal context. The context.scales[name].value is accessed from group and called as a function back in scale. This can be exploited to escape the Vega expression sandbox in order to execute arbitrary JavaScript. This issue has been fixed in version 5.13.1.
Affected products
- Vega-Functions Project Vega-Functions: before 5.13.1 — fixed in 5.13.1
- vega: before 5.23.0 — fixed in 5.23.0
How to fix
Upgrade to a fixed version: Vega-Functions Project Vega-Functions 5.13.1; vega 5.23.0. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.
References
- https://github.com/vega/vega/releases/tag/v5.23.0
- https://github.com/vega/vega/security/advisories/GHSA-4vq7-882g-wcg4
- https://github.dev/vega/vega/blob/72b9b3bbf912212e7879b6acaccc84aff969ef1c/packages/vega-functions/src/functions/scale.js#L36-L37
- https://github.dev/vega/vega/blob/72b9b3bbf912212e7879b6acaccc84aff969ef1c/packages/vega-functions/src/scales.js#L6
- https://vega.github.io/editor/#/url/vega/N4IgJAzgxgFgpgWwIYgFwhgF0wBwqgegIDc4BzJAOjIEtMYBXAI0poHsDp5kTykSArJQBWENgDsQAGhAATJJhSoA2qHFIEcNCAAaAZT0ACAApsAwtJDEkAGwZwIaZQEYAujMwAnJOIgAzNk8EJ1BMAE8cLXQAoIYbFBkkR3QNNgZxTEs4AA8cT21oWzgACgByP3SoUqlDcTibGsNgKAlMHMxUJsKbB07gCvEoPus7OE7ukvLK6sNSuBHihTYmYoAdEABNAHVsmyhxAEU2AFk9AGsAdnWASmuZ5tb2von8JoGhppH7TuVXShbfF4GFBMIF-hIIECQYEAL5wmHXeEIkAw1yomFAA
- https://github.com/vega/vega/releases/tag/v5.23.0
- https://github.com/vega/vega/security/advisories/GHSA-4vq7-882g-wcg4
- https://github.dev/vega/vega/blob/72b9b3bbf912212e7879b6acaccc84aff969ef1c/packages/vega-functions/src/functions/scale.js#L36-L37
- https://github.dev/vega/vega/blob/72b9b3bbf912212e7879b6acaccc84aff969ef1c/packages/vega-functions/src/scales.js#L6
- https://vega.github.io/editor/#/url/vega/N4IgJAzgxgFgpgWwIYgFwhgF0wBwqgegIDc4BzJAOjIEtMYBXAI0poHsDp5kTykSArJQBWENgDsQAGhAATJJhSoA2qHFIEcNCAAaAZT0ACAApsAwtJDEkAGwZwIaZQEYAujMwAnJOIgAzNk8EJ1BMAE8cLXQAoIYbFBkkR3QNNgZxTEs4AA8cT21oWzgACgByP3SoUqlDcTibGsNgKAlMHMxUJsKbB07gCvEoPus7OE7ukvLK6sNSuBHihTYmYoAdEABNAHVsmyhxAEU2AFk9AGsAdnWASmuZ5tb2von8JoGhppH7TuVXShbfF4GFBMIF-hIIECQYEAL5wmHXeEIkAw1yomFAA
Get alerted when CVE-2023-26486 or the next vulnerability affects your stack