Post-Mortem on AngularJS: Three Years After End of Life

The Lingering Ghost of AngularJS

Over three years have passed since AngularJS officially reached its End of Life (EOL) on December 31, 2021. Google and the Angular team ceased active development and security support, marking the official sunset of one of the most widely used front-end JavaScript frameworks of the 2010s. Despite this, AngularJS remains embedded in thousands of applications worldwide—still powering business-critical software, internal tooling, and legacy systems that organizations either cannot or will not migrate away from.

This article examines what has happened to AngularJS since its EOL, the security landscape of AngularJS applications today, and why organizations running AngularJS need to act now to secure their applications and plan for the future. If your business still depends on AngularJS, this is your wake-up call.

The Security Reality: Unpatched Vulnerabilities and the Growing Risk

Since AngularJS was deprecated, it has seen multiple new vulnerabilities (CVEs) disclosed—each posing security risks that will never be patched in the official framework. Here’s a look at what’s been discovered post-EOL:

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These vulnerabilities underscore an uncomfortable truth: even though AngularJS is no longer maintained, attackers continue to find ways to exploit it.

Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) attacks in particular have emerged as a major concern. These attacks exploit inefficient regex patterns within AngularJS to cause CPU spikes, leading to application unresponsiveness. XSS vulnerabilities, meanwhile, remain a persistent threat, as AngularJS templating was already a known weak point—one that will not receive any further official fixes.

For businesses still relying on AngularJS, these unpatched vulnerabilities mean:

• Increased exposure to attackers actively scanning for known exploits.
• Higher costs of mitigation, requiring manual fixes or third-party support.
• Regulatory risks if security breaches expose sensitive customer or business data.

There’s no official open-source safety net anymore. Running AngularJS today means you are on your own unless you have a security strategy in place.

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Why Are So Many Companies Still Using AngularJS?

If AngularJS is so insecure post-EOL, why do so many companies still use it? The reasons are as varied as they are common:

1. Migration Costs Are Too High

Many applications built on AngularJS are deeply embedded in business operations. A full rewrite into a modern framework like React, Vue, or Angular (2+) can take months—or even years—depending on the complexity of the application. For organizations with limited engineering bandwidth, rewriting isn’t just a technical challenge, it’s a business risk.

2. Lack of Developer Resources

Many companies lack AngularJS specialists internally, making it difficult to patch issues or implement temporary security measures. While the developer ecosystem around AngularJS has shrunk, the demand for developers who can maintain and secure legacy applications has not gone away.

3. Technical Debt and Business Prioritization

Migrating away from AngularJS is often deprioritized because the app “still works.” Business leaders see no immediate reason to divert time and resources from revenue-generating initiatives. However, this is a dangerous gamble—as the security risks compound year over year, the cost of inaction continues to rise.

4. Regulatory and Compliance Challenges

Industries bound by strict compliance requirements—such as finance, healthcare, and government—face even greater hurdles in maintaining unsupported software. Running AngularJS without security patches may violate security and compliance standards like SOC 2, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, and GDPR.

The bottom line? AngularJS applications are still everywhere because moving away is difficult—but staying put is getting riskier.

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The Call to Action: What Can You Do Now?

Organizations still using AngularJS have three choices:

1. Migrate Away from AngularJS (The Best Long-Term Solution)

A full migration to a modern framework is the safest and most sustainable option. Modern Angular, React, or Vue provide long-term support, better security practices, and improved performance. However, this requires planning and engineering resources.

2. Secure AngularJS with Extended Support (A Viable Interim Solution)

For companies unable to migrate immediately, extended security support options are available. HeroDevs’ AngularJS Never-Ending Support (NES) provides:

• Proactive security patches for AngularJS vulnerabilities
• Ongoing compatibility fixes for browser and dependency changes
• Expert support from engineers who understand AngularJS

This ensures your application remains protected even though official support has ended.

3. Ignore the Problem and Accept the Risks (Not Recommended)

Doing nothing might seem like the easiest option—but it’s also the most dangerous. Every year that passes increases the likelihood of an attack, a data breach, or an unexpected compatibility issue that breaks your app overnight. At some point, ignoring AngularJS will no longer be an option—whether because of a major security breach or an executive decision to mitigate risks.

The Time to Act is Now

Three years post-EOL, AngularJS still powers a surprising number of business applications—but each passing month brings more risks. New vulnerabilities are still being discovered, dependencies are aging out of support, and compliance risks are rising.

If your company still relies on AngularJS, now is the time to take action:

• Start planning your migration now before an emergency forces your hand.
• If you can't migrate yet, ensure you have extended security support to protect your application.
• Don’t ignore the problem. The longer you wait, the harder it will be to secure and modernize your AngularJS applications.

AngularJS was once an industry-defining framework, but the industry has moved on. If you’re still running AngularJS in 2024, it’s time to make a decision—before the decision is made for you.