Medium · published October 14, 2026
svg-sanitizer is a PHP SVG/XML sanitizer. Prior to 1.0.0, Resolver::processReferences() in src/ElementReference/Resolver.php builds the SVG <use> reference graph with a case-sensitive href attribute predicate before cleanHrefAttributes() normalizes mixed-case names. An attacker can provide xlink:HrEf on nested <use> elements so the graph omits those references, after which the sanitizer converts the attribute to canonical xlink:href and returns the live nesting structure without applying the useNestingLimit protection. A consuming application that renders the sanitized SVG can therefore be exposed to the resource exhaustion that control is designed to prevent. This issue is fixed in version 1.0.0.