CVE-2026-40565

MEDIUM 6.1

FreeScout has Stored XSS / CSS Injection via linkify() — Unescaped URL in Anchor href

CVSS Score

6.1

EPSS Score

0.0%

EPSS Percentile

0th

FreeScout is a free self-hosted help desk and shared mailbox. Prior to version 1.8.213, FreeScout's linkify() function in app/Misc/Helper.php converts plain-text URLs in email bodies into HTML anchor tags without escaping double-quote characters (") in the URL. HTMLPurifier (called first via getCleanBody()) preserves literal " characters in text nodes. linkify() then wraps URLs including those " chars inside an unescaped href="..." attribute, breaking out of the href and injecting arbitrary HTML attributes. Version 1.8.213 fixes the issue.

CWE	CWE-79
Vendor	freescout-help-desk
Product	freescout
Published	Apr 21, 2026

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CVSS v3 Breakdown

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N

Attack Vector

Network

Attack Complexity

Low

Privileges Required

None

User Interaction

Required

Scope

Changed

Confidentiality

Low

Integrity

Low

Availability

None

Affected Versions

freescout-help-desk / freescout

< 1.8.213

References

NVD ↗ CVE.org ↗ EPSS Data ↗

github.com: https://github.com/freescout-help-desk/freescout/security/advisories/GHSA-49pm-xwqj-vwjp github.com: https://github.com/freescout-help-desk/freescout/commit/265379b3ae343f06846adc0aa8510643d1eac2df github.com: https://github.com/freescout-help-desk/freescout/releases/tag/1.8.213