CVE-2025-54880

Mermaid is a JavaScript based diagramming and charting tool that uses Markdown-inspired text definitions and a renderer to create and modify complex diagrams. In the default configuration of mermaid 11.9.0 and earlier, user supplied input for architecture diagram icons is passed to the d3 html() method, creating a sink for cross site scripting. This vulnerability is fixed in 11.10.0.

Mermaid is a JavaScript based diagramming and charting tool that uses Markdown-inspired text definitions and a renderer to create and modify complex diagrams. In the default configuration of mermaid 11.9.0 and earlier, user supplied input for architecture diagram icons is passed to the d3 html() method, creating a sink for cross site scripting. This vulnerability is fixed in 11.10.0.

Summary

In the default configuration of mermaid 11.9.0, user supplied input for architecture diagram icons is passed to the d3 html() method, creating a sink for cross site scripting.

Details

Architecture diagram service iconText values are passed to the d3 html() method, allowing malicious users to inject arbitrary HTML and cause XSS when mermaid-js is used in it's default configuration.

The vulnerability lies here:

export const drawServices = async function (
  db: ArchitectureDB,
  elem: D3Element,
  services: ArchitectureService[]
): Promise<number> {
  for (const service of services) {
    /** ... **/
    } else if (service.iconText) {
      bkgElem.html(
        `<g>${await getIconSVG('blank', { height: iconSize, width: iconSize, fallbackPrefix: architectureIcons.prefix })}</g>`
      );
      const textElemContainer = bkgElem.append('g');
      const fo = textElemContainer
        .append('foreignObject')
        .attr('width', iconSize)
        .attr('height', iconSize);
      const divElem = fo
        .append('div')
        .attr('class', 'node-icon-text')
        .attr('style', `height: ${iconSize}px;`)
        .append('div')
        .html(service.iconText); // <- iconText passed into innerHTML
       /** ... **/
};
};

This issue was introduced with 734bde38777c9190a5a72e96421c83424442d4e4, around 15 months ago, which was released in v11.1.0.

PoC

Render the following diagram and observe the modified DOM.

architecture-beta
    group api(cloud)[API]
    service db "<img src=x onerror=\"document.write(`xss on ${document.domain}`)\">" [Database] in api

Here is a PoC on mermaid.live: https://mermaid.live/edit#pako:eNo9T8FOwzAM_ZXI4rBJpWrpRtuIISF24caZZdKyxOsiLUnlJjCo-u9kQ8wX-_n5-dkjKK8ROEhSRxNQhUh4v8cghWMpOvKxZ7I3M3XyUc83L-9v2z9qQPo0CpneMwFPxnZsILU6M--QyNNKCAHaq2jRhfyL0vLZ7jwMiWd3443Q3krjpt38Mv4sgG3WMsi9HHDLjLs4CwcZdGQ08EARM7BISZMgjJdLBIQjWhTAU6nxIOMpCBBuSrJeug_v7b8yPdMdgR_kaUgo9loGXBvZkbS3LqHTSK8-ugC8LMrrEuAjnIEvlnlVL9q6rZu6Lh-rRQbfwKuyyZuybcvqIaWiqKcMfq6uRd7Uy-kXhYFzcA

Impact

XSS on all sites that use mermaid and render user supplied diagrams without further sanitization.

Remediation

Sanitize the value of iconText before passing it to html().

Mermaid is a JavaScript based diagramming and charting tool that uses Markdown-inspired text definitions and a renderer to create and modify complex diagrams. In the default configuration of mermaid 11.9.0 and earlier, user supplied input for architecture diagram icons is passed to the d3 html() method, creating a sink for cross site scripting. This vulnerability is fixed in 11.10.0.

Mermaid is a JavaScript based diagramming and charting tool that uses Markdown-inspired text definitions and a renderer to create and modify complex diagrams. In the default configuration of mermaid 11.9.0 and earlier, user supplied input for architecture diagram icons is passed to the d3 html() method, creating a sink for cross site scripting. This vulnerability is fixed in 11.10.0.

Summary

In the default configuration of mermaid 11.9.0, user supplied input for architecture diagram icons is passed to the d3 html() method, creating a sink for cross site scripting.

Details

Architecture diagram service iconText values are passed to the d3 html() method, allowing malicious users to inject arbitrary HTML and cause XSS when mermaid-js is used in it's default configuration.

The vulnerability lies here:

export const drawServices = async function (
  db: ArchitectureDB,
  elem: D3Element,
  services: ArchitectureService[]
): Promise<number> {
  for (const service of services) {
    /** ... **/
    } else if (service.iconText) {
      bkgElem.html(
        `<g>${await getIconSVG('blank', { height: iconSize, width: iconSize, fallbackPrefix: architectureIcons.prefix })}</g>`
      );
      const textElemContainer = bkgElem.append('g');
      const fo = textElemContainer
        .append('foreignObject')
        .attr('width', iconSize)
        .attr('height', iconSize);
      const divElem = fo
        .append('div')
        .attr('class', 'node-icon-text')
        .attr('style', `height: ${iconSize}px;`)
        .append('div')
        .html(service.iconText); // <- iconText passed into innerHTML
       /** ... **/
};
};

This issue was introduced with 734bde38777c9190a5a72e96421c83424442d4e4, around 15 months ago, which was released in v11.1.0.

PoC

Render the following diagram and observe the modified DOM.

architecture-beta
    group api(cloud)[API]
    service db "<img src=x onerror=\"document.write(`xss on ${document.domain}`)\">" [Database] in api

Here is a PoC on mermaid.live: https://mermaid.live/edit#pako:eNo9T8FOwzAM_ZXI4rBJpWrpRtuIISF24caZZdKyxOsiLUnlJjCo-u9kQ8wX-_n5-dkjKK8ROEhSRxNQhUh4v8cghWMpOvKxZ7I3M3XyUc83L-9v2z9qQPo0CpneMwFPxnZsILU6M--QyNNKCAHaq2jRhfyL0vLZ7jwMiWd3443Q3krjpt38Mv4sgG3WMsi9HHDLjLs4CwcZdGQ08EARM7BISZMgjJdLBIQjWhTAU6nxIOMpCBBuSrJeug_v7b8yPdMdgR_kaUgo9loGXBvZkbS3LqHTSK8-ugC8LMrrEuAjnIEvlnlVL9q6rZu6Lh-rRQbfwKuyyZuybcvqIaWiqKcMfq6uRd7Uy-kXhYFzcA

Impact

XSS on all sites that use mermaid and render user supplied diagrams without further sanitization.

Remediation

Sanitize the value of iconText before passing it to html().

Mermaid is a JavaScript based diagramming and charting tool that uses Markdown-inspired text definitions and a renderer to create and modify complex diagrams. In the default configuration of mermaid 11.9.0 and earlier, user supplied input for architecture diagram icons is passed to the d3 html() method, creating a sink for cross site scripting. This vulnerability is fixed in 11.10.0.