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CVE-2026-48988 (GCVE-0-2026-48988)

Vulnerability from cvelistv5 – Published: 2026-06-17 20:54 – Updated: 2026-06-18 19:41
VLAI
Title
markdown-it: Quadratic complexity DoS in smartquotes rule via replaceAt string operations
Summary
markdown-it is a Markdown parser. Versions 14.1.1 and below contain a denial-of-service vulnerability when typographer: true is enabled, due to quadratic (O(n^2)) processing in the smartquotes rule. The issue stems from repeatedly modifying strings with replaceAt(), which performs O(n) slicing and concatenation per quote character. This can cause excessive CPU consumption when parsing quote-heavy, user-supplied markdown and may let attackers degrade or disrupt service availability. Although typographer is disabled by default, many production apps enable it for smart typography, making the issue relevant. This issue has been fixed in version 14.2.0.
Severity
5.3 (Medium)
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
SSVC
Exploitation: poc Automatable: yes Technical Impact: partial
CISA Coordinator · CISA-ADP (v2.0.3)
Decision recorded 2026-06-18 19:41 UTC
CWE
  • CWE-400 - Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
Assigner
References
Impacted products
Vendor Product Version CPE status
markdown-it markdown-it Affected: < 14.2.0
guessed Create a notification for this product.
Show details on NVD website
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Forecast uses a logistic model when the trend is rising, or an exponential decay model when the trend is falling. Fitted via linearized least squares.

Sightings

Author Source Type Date Other

Nomenclature

  • Seen: The vulnerability was mentioned, discussed, or observed by the user.
  • Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
  • Published Proof of Concept: A public proof of concept is available for this vulnerability.
  • Exploited: The vulnerability was observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Patched: The vulnerability was observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Not exploited: The vulnerability was not observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Not confirmed: The user expressed doubt about the validity of the vulnerability.
  • Not patched: The vulnerability was not observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.


Detection rules are retrieved from Rulezet.