Enable sanitization of inbound virtual agent chat messages

reference brazil Updated Sep 10, 2026 1 min read sc-enable-sanitization-of-inbound-virtual-agent-chat-messages.md
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The glide.cs.sanitize_inbound_messages.enabled property controls whether Virtual Agent runs a dedicated HTML sanitization check on inbound chat messages sent from a requester to an agent.

When set to true (recommended), the platform strips unsafe HTML content from each inbound message. If content is removed, both the requester and the agent (in live-agent conversations) are notified that sanitization occurred. When set to false, inbound messages instead pass through only the legacy system-message sanitization path, and the dedicated inbound-content check is skipped.

To configure this property:

  1. Navigate to /sys_properties_list.do on the instance.
  2. Set the glide.cs.sanitize_inbound_messages.enabled property to true.

More information

Attribute

Description

Configuration name

glide.cs.sanitize_inbound_messages.enabled

Configuration type

System Properties ( /sys_properties_list.do)

Data type

Boolean

Recommended value

true

Default value

false

Fallback value

false

Category

Validation, sanitization, and encoding

Security risk

  • Severity score: 3.5
  • CVSS rating: Low
  • Security risk details: If this property is not set to true, Virtual Agent chat messages from requesters skip this dedicated sanitization check. The message is delivered to the agent unfiltered. A requester can inject malicious HTML or script content into their message. When the agent views the message, the browser renders this content in the agent's session, creating a reflected cross-site scripting (XSS) attack against the agent.

Functional impact

Enabling this property adds an additional sanitization pass to every inbound Virtual Agent chat message. Messages containing certain markup are flagged, stripped, and replaced with a system warning to the requester and agent. Live-agent handoffs receive the same treatment rather than delivery as originally typed.

Availability impact is minimal because the control affects message content and rendering only—not conversation flow or session continuity.

Test these scenarios:

  • >Inbound consumer and live-agent chat conversations
  • Messages containing HTML-like syntax or rich-control content (for example, topic-picker selections)

Verify that legitimate messages are delivered without false warnings.

Dependencies and prerequisites

No effect unless com.glide.cs.html.sanitizer.enabled is set to true.

**Parent Topic:**[Validation, sanitization, and encoding](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/brazil/markdown/platform-security/instance-security-hardening-settings/validation-sanitization-encoding.md)
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