๐Ÿ” CVE Alert

CVE-2026-40296

MEDIUM 5.4

PhpSpreadsheet vulnerable to XSS in HTML writer via custom number format codes

CVSS Score
5.4
EPSS Score
0.0%
EPSS Percentile
0th

PhpSpreadsheet is a pure PHP library for reading and writing spreadsheet files. The HTML writer skips htmlspecialchars escaping when a cell's formatted value differs from the original value. When a cell has a custom number format containing the text placeholder @ along with any additional literal characters (for example ". @", "@ ", or "x@"), the formatter replaces @ with the cell value and adds the extra characters, causing the formatted value to differ from the original and bypassing HTML escaping entirely. An attacker who can control the cell value and number format of an uploaded spreadsheet that is later converted to HTML and displayed to other users can achieve stored cross-site scripting. This issue is fixed in versions 5.7.0, 3.10.5, 2.4.5, 2.1.16, and 1.30.4.

CWE CWE-79
Vendor phpoffice
Product phpspreadsheet
Published May 6, 2026
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CVSS v3 Breakdown

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N
Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
Low
User Interaction
Required
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
Low
Availability
None

Affected Versions

PHPOffice / PhpSpreadsheet
>= 4.0.0, <= 5.6.0 >= 3.3.0, <= 3.10.4 >= 2.2.0, <= 2.4.4 >= 2.0.0, <= 2.1.15 <= 1.30.3

References

NVD โ†— CVE.org โ†— EPSS Data โ†—
github.com: https://github.com/PHPOffice/PhpSpreadsheet/security/advisories/GHSA-hrmw-qprp-wgmc