published October 11, 2025
Happy DOM is a JavaScript implementation of a web browser without its graphical user interface. Happy DOM v19 and lower contains a security vulnerability that puts the owner system at the risk of RCE (Remote Code Execution) attacks. A Node.js VM Context is not an isolated environment, and if the user runs untrusted JavaScript code within the Happy DOM VM Context, it may escape the VM and get access to process level functionality. It seems like what the attacker can get control over depends on if the process is using ESM or CommonJS. With CommonJS the attacker can get hold of the `require()` function to import modules. Happy DOM has JavaScript evaluation enabled by default. This may not be obvious to the consumer of Happy DOM and can potentially put the user at risk if untrusted code is executed within the environment. Version 20.0.0 patches the issue by changing JavaScript evaluation to be disabled by default.