? Unsafe terminal escape sequences and ANSI codes from decryption

Is it unsafe to concatenate certain terminal escape sequences or ANSI 
codes inside a terminal emulator?

Here is the scenario. I am working from a terminal emulator (lxterm, 
gnome-terminal, mate-terminal, guake, terminology). I decrypt a message 
to a file. I cat the plaintext file to the terminal ('cat $filename' or 
'less -r $filename').

What could go wrong here?

Is there potential for malicious escape sequences in the plaintext? 
Could such escape sequences or ANSI codes hijack the terminal and 
somehow compromise the system? If so then how?

Where would I find timely information on such escape sequences and 
mitigating any problems they could cause or safely filtering them?

What tools are there to filter out such sequences to ensure safely 
catting in a terminal? Are there any relevant tools in the GNU coreutils?

-- 

G.K.