diff --git a/src/HtmlUtils.js b/src/HtmlUtils.js
index fc1630b6fb..ae594de960 100644
--- a/src/HtmlUtils.js
+++ b/src/HtmlUtils.js
@@ -28,6 +28,11 @@ emojione.imagePathSVG = 'emojione/svg/';
 emojione.imageType = 'svg';
 
 const EMOJI_REGEX = new RegExp(emojione.unicodeRegexp+"+", "gi");
+const COLOR_REGEX = /^[#a-z0-9]+$/;
+const ALLOWED_CSS = {
+    "background-color": COLOR_REGEX,
+    "color": COLOR_REGEX,
+};
 
 /* modified from https://github.com/Ranks/emojione/blob/master/lib/js/emojione.js
  * because we want to include emoji shortnames in title text
@@ -91,7 +96,7 @@ var sanitizeHtmlParams = {
     ],
     allowedAttributes: {
         // custom ones first:
-        font: [ 'color' ], // custom to matrix
+        font: [ 'color' , 'style' ], // custom to matrix
         a: [ 'href', 'name', 'target', 'rel' ], // remote target: custom to matrix
         // We don't currently allow img itself by default, but this
         // would make sense if we did
@@ -136,6 +141,31 @@ var sanitizeHtmlParams = {
             attribs.rel = 'noopener'; // https://mathiasbynens.github.io/rel-noopener/
             return { tagName: tagName, attribs : attribs };
         },
+        '*': function(tagName, attribs) {
+            // Only allow certain CSS attributes to avoid XSS attacks
+            // Sanitizing values to avoid `url(...)` and `expression(...)` attacks
+            if (!attribs.style) {
+                return { tagName: tagName, attribs : attribs };
+            }
+
+            const pairs = attribs.style.split(';');
+            let sanitisedStyle = "";
+            for (let i = 0; i < pairs.length; i++) {
+                const pair = pairs[i].split(':');
+                if (!Object.keys(ALLOWED_CSS).includes(pair[0]) || !ALLOWED_CSS[pair[0]].test(pair[1])) {
+                    continue;
+                }
+                sanitisedStyle += pair[0] + ":" + pair[1] + ";";
+            }
+
+            if (sanitisedStyle) {
+                attribs.style = sanitisedStyle;
+            } else {
+                delete attribs.style;
+            }
+
+            return { tagName: tagName, attribs : attribs };
+        },
     },
 };