CVE-2026-21443: OpenEMR allows inconsistent escaping of translation function output

Severity: medium (CVSS 6.1 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-02-25 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-116

Description

OpenEMR is a free and open source electronic health records and medical practice management application. Prior to version 8.0.0, the `xl()` translation function returns unescaped strings. While wrapper functions exist for escaping in different contexts (`xlt()` for HTML, `xla()` for attributes, `xlj()` for JavaScript), there are places in the codebase where `xl()` output is used directly without escaping. If an attacker could insert malicious content into the translation database, these unescaped outputs could lead to XSS. Version 8.0.0 fixes the issue.

Affected products

openemr: before 8.0.0 — fixed in 8.0.0

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: openemr 8.0.0. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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