CVE-2026-49851
HIGHMistune: Potential DoS via quadratic-time parsing in parse_link_text
Title source: cnaDescription
Mistune is a Python Markdown parser with renderers and plugins. Prior to 3.3.0, Mistune is vulnerable to a CPU exhaustion DoS due to superlinear (approximately O(n²)) behavior in parse_link_text. When parsing Markdown containing many consecutive [ characters, parse_link_text repeatedly scans the input using a regex search inside a loop. Each iteration re-scans a large portion of the remaining string, resulting in quadratic-time behavior. An attacker-controlled Markdown input can therefore trigger excessive CPU usage with a very small payload. This vulnerability is fixed in 3.3.0.
References (4)
Core 4
Core References
Vendor Advisory
https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-49851
Vendor Advisory
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2492304
X_Refsource_Confirm x_refsource_confirm
https://github.com/lepture/mistune/security/advisories/GHSA-qcq2-496w-v96p
Scores
CVSS v3
7.5
EPSS
0.0035
EPSS Percentile
27.1%
Attack Vector
NETWORK
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CISA SSVC
Vulnrichment
Exploitation
poc
Automatable
yes
Technical Impact
partial
Details
CWE
CWE-1333
CWE-400
CWE-407
CWE-770
Status
published
Products (2)
lepture/mistune
< 3.3.0
pypi/mistune
0 - 3.3.0PyPI
Published
Jun 24, 2026
Tracked Since
Jun 24, 2026