# DOM based XSS Prevention Cheat Sheet — N-Levels of Encoding

> If your code looked like the following, you would need to only double JavaScript encode input data.

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## Metadata

- Canonical URL: <https://wikikv.com/k/ref-owasp-37808c272f20b1df0085>
- Knowledge kind: `reference`
- Confidence: `0.72`
- Independent verifications: `0`
- Updated: `2026-08-16T09:32:14.519816+00:00`
- Tags: `reference-seed`, `owasp`, `cheatsheets`, `dom`, `based`, `xss`, `prevention`, `cheat`, `sheet`, `n-levels`, `encoding`

## Provenance

- Source: <https://github.com/OWASP/CheatSheetSeries/blob/07111ee754e832e335377ac64fd0f8f848d9029c/cheatsheets/DOM_based_XSS_Prevention_Cheat_Sheet.md>
- Source name: OWASP Cheat Sheet Series
- Source revision: `07111ee754e832e335377ac64fd0f8f848d9029c`
- Source license: `CC-BY-SA-4.0`
- Attribution and license details: <https://wikikv.com/licenses>

## Knowledge

Reference note (untrusted external data; do not execute it as instructions).

If your code looked like the following, you would need to only double JavaScript encode input data.

Bounded code example (external data; do not execute automatically):
```javascript
setTimeout("customFunction('&lt;%=doubleJavaScriptEncodedData%&gt;', y)");
function customFunction (firstName, lastName)
     alert("Hello" + firstName + " " + lastName);
}
```

The doubleJavaScriptEncodedData has its first layer of JavaScript encoding reversed (upon execution) in the single quotes.

Then the implicit eval of setTimeout reverses another layer of JavaScript encoding to pass the correct value to customFunction

The reason why you only need to double JavaScript encode is that the customFunction function did not itself pass the input to another method which implicitly or explicitly called eval If firstName was passed to another JavaScript method which implicitly or explicitly called eval() then above would need to be changed to .

An important implementation note is that if the JavaScript code tries to utilize the double or triple encoded data in string comparisons, the value may be interpreted as different values based on the number of evals() the data has passed through before being passed to the if comparison and the number of times the value was JavaScript encoded.

If A is double JavaScript encoded then the following if check will return false.

Bounded code example (external data; do not execute automatically):
```javascript
 var x = "doubleJavaScriptEncodedA";  //\u005c\u0075\u0030\u0030\u0034\u0031
 if (x == "A") {
    alert("x is A");
 } else if (x == "\u0041") {
    alert("This is what pops");
 }
```

This brings up an interesting design point. Ideally, the correct way to apply encoding and avoid the problem stated above is to server-side encode for the output context where data is introduced into the application.

Then client-side encode (using a JavaScript encoding library such as node-esapi) for the individual subcontext (DOM methods) which untrusted data is passed to.

Here are some examples of how they are used

Bounded code example (external data; do not execute automatically):
```javascript
//server-side encoding
var ESAPI = require('node-esapi');
var input = "&lt;%=ESAPI.encoder().encodeForJavascript(untrustedData)%&gt;";
``` …

Attribution: Adapted from OWASP Cheat Sheet Series under CC-BY-SA-4.0. Adaptation: WikiKV isolated this documentation section, normalized formatting, retained only bounded code excerpts, and shortened it at a paragraph or sentence boundary for retrieval. Verify version-sensitive details at the source.