Cyber Resilience

CVE-2026-39425

XSS in Maxkb ≤ 2.8.0

Published
14 April 2026
Modified
20 April 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v4 5.1
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:P/VC:L/VI:L/VA:N/SC:L/SI:L/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
EPSS Score 0.0018 8th percentile
Risk Priority 35 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2026-39425 is a medium-severity Basic XSS (CWE-80) vulnerability in Maxkb Maxkb. Its CVSS base score is 5.1 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Content Injection (T1659); ranked at the 8th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

This vulnerability is AI-related — categorised as Enterprise AI Assistants; in the Privacy and Disclosure risk domain.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SI-10 (Information Input Validation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

MaxKB is an open-source AI assistant for enterprise. Versions 2.7.1 and below contain a Stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability that allows authenticated users to inject arbitrary HTML and JavaScript into the Application prologue (Opening Remarks) field by wrapping malicious payloads…

more

in <html_rander> tags. The backend fails to sanitize or encode HTML entities in the prologue field when applications are created or updated via the /admin/api/workspace/{workspace_id}/application endpoint, storing the raw payload directly in the database. The frontend then renders this content using an innerHTML-equivalent mechanism, trusting <html_rander>-wrapped content to be safe, which enables persistent DOM-based Stored XSS execution against any visitor who opens the affected chatbot interface. Exploitation can lead to session hijacking, unauthorized actions performed on behalf of victims (such as deleting workspaces or applications), and sensitive data exposure. This issue has been fixed in version 2.8.0.

CWE(s)

AI Security AnalysisAI

AI Category
Enterprise AI Assistants
Risk Domain
Privacy and Disclosure
OWASP Top 10 for LLMs 2025
None mapped
Classification Reason
Matched keywords: ai

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1659 Content Injection Initial Access
Adversaries may gain access and continuously communicate with victims by injecting malicious content into systems through online network traffic.
T1539 Steal Web Session Cookie Credential Access
An adversary may steal web application or service session cookies and use them to gain access to web applications or Internet services as an authenticated user without needing credentials.
T1189 Drive-by Compromise Initial Access
Adversaries may gain access to a system through a user visiting a website over the normal course of browsing.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2026-39426Same product: Maxkb Maxkb
CVE-2026-39422Same product: Maxkb Maxkb
CVE-2026-39423Same product: Maxkb Maxkb
CVE-2025-64703Same product: Maxkb Maxkb
CVE-2026-39419Same product: Maxkb Maxkb
CVE-2025-64511Same product: Maxkb Maxkb
CVE-2026-39424Same product: Maxkb Maxkb
CVE-2026-39420Same product: Maxkb Maxkb
CVE-2026-39417Same product: Maxkb Maxkb
CVE-2025-53927Same product: Maxkb Maxkb

Affected Assets

maxkb
maxkb
≤ 2.8.0

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V1.2.1
  • V1.3.1
  • V1.3.3
  • V1.3.4

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Developer testing and evaluation can discover missing or incorrect neutralization of script tags through targeted XSS test cases.

Input validation explicitly requires checking and neutralizing untrusted web inputs containing script-related characters before they reach a downstream renderer.

Secure engineering principles include mandatory output encoding and neutralization of HTML metacharacters to stop injection at the source.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices directly require output encoding and input validation that prevent basic XSS.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

finds

Security testing in development catches unneutralized script tags before release.

prevents

Secure SDLC mandates input validation and output encoding that directly prevent basic XSS.

prevents

Application security requirements explicitly call for neutralization of script-related HTML tags.

prevents

Secure coding standards require proper escaping of <, >, & to block XSS.

none

Web filtering can block some reflected XSS payloads at the network edge.

References