Hugo does not escape some attributes in internal templates

MEDIUM 5.3CVE-2024-55601 · GHSA-c2xf-9v2r-r2rx · GO-2024-3314 · Published 09/12/2024 · updated 17/06/2026

In short

CVE-2024-55601 is a MEDIUM (CVSS 5.3) vulnerability affecting github.com/gohugoio/hugo.
Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days (EPSS): 0.60%, higher than 48.7% of all vulnerabilities.
Fix: update to 0.139.4 or later.

Package	Affected versions	Patched versions
github.com/gohugoio/hugo Go	`≥ 0.123.0, < 0.139.4`	`0.139.4`

Description

Impact

Some HTML attributes in Markdown in the internal templates listed below not escaped. Impacted are Hugo users who do not trust their Markdown content files and are using one or more of these templates.

_default/_markup/render-link.html from v0.123.0
_default/_markup/render-image.html from v0.123.0
_default/_markup/render-table.html from v0.134.0
shortcodes/youtube.html from v0.125.0

Patches

Patched in v0.139.4.

Workarounds

Replace with user defined templates or disable the internal templates: https://gohugo.io/getting-started/configuration-markup/#renderhooksimageenabledefault

References

NVD description

Hugo is a static site generator. Starting in version 0.123.0 and prior to version 0.139.4, some HTML attributes in Markdown in the internal templates listed below not escaped in internal render hooks. Those whoa re impacted are Hugo users who do not trust their Markdown content files and are using one or more of these templates: `_default/_markup/render-link.html` from `v0.123.0`; `_default/_markup/render-image.html` from `v0.123.0`; `_default/_markup/render-table.html` from `v0.134.0`; and/or `shortcodes/youtube.html` from `v0.125.0`. This issue is patched in v0.139.4. As a workaround, one may replace an affected component with user defined templates or disable the internal templates.