PhantomJS through 2.1.1 has an arbitrary file read vulnerability, as demonstrated by an XMLHttpRequest for a file:// URI. The vulnerability exists in the page.open() function of the webpage module, which loads a specified URL and calls a given callback. An attacker can supply a specially crafted HTML file, as user input, that allows reading arbitrary files on the filesystem. For example, if page.render() is the function callback, this generates a PDF or an image of the targeted file. NOTE: this product is no longer developed.
CVE-2019-17221
Score 7.5 from GitHub Security Advisory (severity: HIGH) published 2022-05-24. NVD baseline CVSS 7.5; sources differ by 0.0.
- High severity, but no confirmed exploitation yet
No vendor fix yet — apply a workaround or compensating control (WAF / firewall / segmentation) and watch for a patch.
- CVSS v3
- 7.5
- EG Score
- 7.5(medium)
- EPSS
- 87.5%
- KEV
- Not listed
Published
November 5, 2019
Last Modified
November 21, 2024
References (2)
- cve@mitrehttps://www.darkmatter.ae/blogs/breaching-the-perimeter-phantomjs-arbitrary-file-read/
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://www.darkmatter.ae/blogs/breaching-the-perimeter-phantomjs-arbitrary-file-read/
Patch Availability(1)
| Vendor / Ecosystem | Fixed in / Patch | Released | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| npm | phantomjs | — | ghsa |
Patches are aggregated from vendor advisories (Red Hat, Microsoft, Cisco, GitHub) and package ecosystems (OSV, GHSA). Multiple rows for the same upstream release have been deduplicated.
Affected Packages
(1 across 1 ecosystem)
npm(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| phantomjs | — | — | — |
Weakness Classification(1)
MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.
Data Freshness Timeline
(refreshed 9× in last 7d / 41× in last 30d)
Each row is a source pipeline that fetched or updated this CVE on that date, with what changed. For example, "NVD update" means NVD published or revised its analysis for this CVE; "MITRE cvelistV5" means we ingested or refreshed it from the CNA feed. Most recent first.
- 2026-07-11 08:24 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-07-04 06:28 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-02 17:56 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-07-01 15:03 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-06-22 14:23 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-06-14 23:15 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-06-14 15:43 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-06-13 22:58 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-06-11 13:58 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-05-27 13:38 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-27 12:17 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-05-27 12:17 UTCGHSA enrichment
- 2026-05-27 00:43 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-05-26 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-26 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-26 07:17 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-05-26 07:17 UTCEPSS rescore
Publicly available exploits
(1 reference)Working exploit code is in the public domain (1 GitHub PoC). Defenders should treat patch urgency accordingly — public PoCs typically lead to mass-exploitation within 24-72 hours.
- GitHub PoCh4ckologic/CVE-2019-17221First seen Jan 16, 2020
PhantomJS uses internal module: webpage, to open, close, render, and perform multiple actions on webpages, which suffers from an arbitrary file read vulnerability. The vulnerability exists in the page.open() function of the webpage module, which loads the specified URL and calls a given callback. When opening a HTML file, an attacker can supply specially crafted file content, which allows reading arbitrary files on the filesystem. The vulnerability is demonstrated by using page.render() as the function callback, resulting in the generation of a PDF or an image of the targeted file.
Open source ↗
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Frequently asked(5)
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