diff --git a/cmake/OpenCVUtils.cmake b/cmake/OpenCVUtils.cmake
index da6a3b9664..0a84aa6a5c 100644
--- a/cmake/OpenCVUtils.cmake
+++ b/cmake/OpenCVUtils.cmake
@@ -822,6 +822,11 @@ function(ocv_output_status msg)
   message(STATUS "${msg}")
   string(REPLACE "\\" "\\\\" msg "${msg}")
   string(REPLACE "\"" "\\\"" msg "${msg}")
+  string(REGEX REPLACE "^\n+|\n+$" "" msg "${msg}")
+  if(msg MATCHES "\n")
+    message(WARNING "String to be inserted to version_string.inc has an unexpected line break: '${msg}'")
+    string(REPLACE "\n" "\\n" msg "${msg}")
+  endif()
   set(OPENCV_BUILD_INFO_STR "${OPENCV_BUILD_INFO_STR}\"${msg}\\n\"\n" CACHE INTERNAL "")
 endfunction()