CVE-2026-85271
Open edX Platform enables the authoring and delivery of online learning at any scale. From Redwood until Ulmo and Verawood.1, the add_additional_attributes_to_notifications function in openedx/core/djangoapps/notifications/email/utils.py assigns notification content without sanitizing discussion-title values produced by get_notification_content in openedx/core/djangoapps/notifications/base_notification.py. An enrolled student can place CSS-capable markup in the post_title value supplied by lms/djangoapps/discussion/rest_api/discussions_notifications.py. Digest and batched-email rendering then passes that value through openedx/core/djangoapps/notifications/templates/notifications/digest_content.html as safe HTML, allowing email-open tracking and content spoofing or phishing when another learner opens a CSS-rendering client. The immediate-email path is not affected because it strips title markup and renders a separately sanitized body. This issue is fixed in Ulmo and Verawood.1.
What this means for your business
- An attacker can use it remotely, over a network, without a login, but only after tricking someone into an action such as opening a file or a link.
- FIRST's prediction model gives it a 0.2% chance of attack attempts being seen in the next 30 days, ranking above 10% of all known flaws.
What to do
- 1Ask your IT team or provider whether any of your systems use the affected product.
- 2If you do, follow the vendor's guidance. No patch reference has been published yet.
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Scoring
- CVSS
- 6.1 (v3.1)
- Vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N- Weakness
- CWE-79
- Assigned by
- security-advisories@github.com
Dates
- Published
- 2026-09-18
- Last modified
- 2026-09-24
- Sources
- NVD
References
- https://github.com/openedx/openedx-platform/commit/2af03d21b4142e53e375c7f3699b313e92ec5121
- https://github.com/openedx/openedx-platform/commit/52f2b3bb3e6fac2601c29e8f926c81498d20bb0b
- https://github.com/openedx/openedx-platform/commit/5eae6e51a8797cd3b87cc132f5de73d52561c4d7
- https://github.com/openedx/openedx-platform/releases/tag/release/ulmo.4
- https://github.com/openedx/openedx-platform/releases/tag/release/verawood.1
- https://github.com/openedx/openedx-platform/security/advisories/GHSA-rv5w-f4r5-h77g