diff --git a/app/models/category.rb b/app/models/category.rb
index f0c4e4b800..067037e1dc 100644
--- a/app/models/category.rb
+++ b/app/models/category.rb
@@ -217,7 +217,7 @@ class Category < ActiveRecord::Base
 
     @@cache ||= LruRedux::ThreadSafeCache.new(1000)
     @@cache.getset(self.description) do
-      Nokogiri::HTML.fragment(self.description).text.strip
+      Nokogiri::HTML.fragment(self.description).text.strip.html_safe
     end
   end
 
diff --git a/lib/category_badge.rb b/lib/category_badge.rb
index 1b9398a46e..0f93623af7 100644
--- a/lib/category_badge.rb
+++ b/lib/category_badge.rb
@@ -79,7 +79,7 @@ module CategoryBadge
 
     # category name
     class_names = 'badge-category clear-badge'
-    description = category.description_text ? "title='#{category.description_text.html_safe}'" : ''
+    description = category.description_text ? "title='#{category.description_text}'" : ''
     category_url = opts[:absolute_url] ? "#{Discourse.base_url_no_prefix}#{category.url}" : category.url
 
     extra_span_classes =
@@ -102,7 +102,10 @@ module CategoryBadge
     result << "<span style='#{extra_span_classes}' data-drop-close='true' class='#{class_names}'
                  #{description}>"
 
-    result << category.name.html_safe << '</span>'
-    "<a class='badge-wrapper #{extra_classes}' href='#{category_url}'" + (opts[:inline_style] ? inline_badge_wrapper_style : '') + ">#{result}</a>"
+    result << ERB::Util.html_escape(category.name) << '</span>'
+
+    result = "<a class='badge-wrapper #{extra_classes}' href='#{category_url}'" + (opts[:inline_style] ? inline_badge_wrapper_style : '') + ">#{result}</a>"
+
+    result.html_safe
   end
 end
diff --git a/spec/components/category_badge_spec.rb b/spec/components/category_badge_spec.rb
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..ac89883cd2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/spec/components/category_badge_spec.rb
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+require 'rails_helper'
+require 'category_badge'
+
+describe CategoryBadge do
+  it "escapes HTML in category names / descriptions" do
+    c = Fabricate(:category, name: '<b>name</b>', description: '<b>title</b>')
+
+    html = CategoryBadge.html_for(c)
+
+    expect(html).not_to include("<b>title</b>")
+    expect(html).not_to include("<b>name</b>")
+    expect(html).to include(ERB::Util.html_escape("<b>name</b>"))
+    expect(html).to include("title='title'")
+  end
+end