diff --git a/lib/markdown2.py b/lib/markdown2.py
index 8dd1c48e..ae2b9702 100755
--- a/lib/markdown2.py
+++ b/lib/markdown2.py
@@ -3111,8 +3111,17 @@ def process_image(self, url: str, title_attr: str, link_text: str) -> Tuple[str,
                This section will be skipped by the link processor
         '''
         img_class_str = self.md._html_class_str_from_tag("img")
+        safe_src = self.md._protect_url(url)
+        if self.md.safe_mode:
+            # Defense-in-depth: strip schemes that are never valid for an image
+            # `src` and only serve as XSS vectors. `data:` images, http(s) and
+            # relative URLs are preserved (and quote-escaped by `_protect_url`),
+            # matching markdown2's existing image handling.
+            normalized = re.sub(r"[\s\x00-\x1f]+", "", url).lower()
+            if normalized.startswith(("javascript:", "vbscript:")):
+                safe_src = ""
         result = (
-            f'<img src="{self.md._protect_url(url)}"'
+            f'<img src="{safe_src}"'
             f' alt="{self.md._hash_span(_xml_escape_attr(link_text))}"'
             f'{title_attr}{img_class_str}{self.md.empty_element_suffix}'
         )