Medium severity · published Aug 31, 2026
CVE-2026-76984
Apache Wicket: XSS in MetaDataHeaderItem via addTagAttribute
5.4
CVSS
0.5%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
Improper neutralization of input during web page generation in Apache Wicket.
org.apache.wicket.markup.head.MetaDataHeaderItem generates <meta> and <link> header tags. It escaped the attribute names it wrote, but ran the attribute values through a replacement of " with \". A backslash before a double quote means nothing in HTML, so a value containing a double quote ends its own attribute and what follows is parsed as further attributes of the generated tag.
An application is affected where it supplies an attribute value holding data an attacker can influence, through addTagAttribute or the forMetaTag and forLinkTag factory methods. A value may be given as an IModel, so it is not necessarily a literal.
There is no setting to change; an application can only avoid supplying a value that contains a double quote. Note that these values have never been escaped effectively: before the change released in 6.24.0, 7.4.0 and 8.0.0 they were written with no escaping at all.
This issue affects Apache Wicket: from 8.0.0 through 8.18.0, from 9.0.0 through 9.23.0, from 10.0.0 through 10.10.0. Older, unsupported releases from 6.17.0 onwards are also affected. Users are recommended to upgrade to version 8.19.0, 9.24.0 or 10.11.0, which fix the issue.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
Required
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
Low
Availability
None
Scope
Changed
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.5% · higher than 43% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
AW
Apache Wicket · Apache Software Foundation
8.0.0 through 8.18.0; 9.0.0 through 9.23.0; 10.0.0 through 10.10.0 · source: vendor
WI
Wicket · Apache
8.0.0 before 8.19.0; 9.0.0 before 9.24.0; 10.0.0 before 10.11.0 · source: NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-76984
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-76984
Vendor Advisory
https://lists.apache.org/thread/jt8yxntfjcxnnntth1qjtdo19gzx5n6v
Mailing List
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/08/31/4
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