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High

markdown-it vulnerable to Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity

  • Disclosed: 27.12.2022
  • Updated: 11.10.2026 10:22

A vulnerability was found in markdown-it up to 2.x. It has been classified as problematic. Affected is an unknown function of the file lib/common/html_re.js. The manipulation leads to inefficient regular expression complexity. Upgrading to version 3.0.0 is able to address this issue. The name of the patch is 89c8620157d6e38f9872811620d25138fc9d1b0d. It is recommended to upgrade the affected component. The identifier of this vulnerability is VDB-216852.

Affected software

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PlatformPackageVulnerable versionsFixed in
npm package markdown-it < 3.0.0 3.0.0

References

CVSS score 7.5/10
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Weakness (CWE)
CWE-1333
Platform
npm
Package
markdown-it
Disclosed
27.12.2022
Updated
11.10.2026 10:22

Sources and licenses

OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - GHSA-j5p7-jf4q-742q - CC BY 4.0

Vulnerability history: markdown-it

All published vulnerabilities of this package (npm package), newest first. Shows whether this is a one-off slip or a package that needs watching.

Total entries
8
First → latest
01.2022 10.2026
Without a fix
0
Exploited in attacks
0

Severity breakdown

  • High 3
  • Medium 4
  • Low 1

Disclosures per year

  1. markdown-it: Quadratic-time rendering of a single multi-line link reference definition with default options (regression since 14.0)
    High · 7.5 CVE-2026-111758 >= 14.1.0, < 14.3.3, >= 15.0.0, < 15.0.3 14.3.3, 15.0.3
  2. markdown-it: Quadratic-time denial of service in inline HTML parsing with html enabled
    Low · 3.7 CVE-2026-111766 < 14.3.3, >= 15.0.0, < 15.0.3 14.3.3, 15.0.3
  3. markdown-it: Quadratic complexity in smartquotes with unmatched closing quotes
    High · 7.5 CVE-2026-111759 >= 15.0.0, < 15.0.2, < 14.3.2 15.0.2, 14.3.2
  4. markdown-it linkify: true has two quadratic paths, so a few hundred KB of markdown blocks the event loop for tens of seconds
    Medium ghsa-253c-mchw-3w2r >= 15.0.0, < 15.0.1, < 14.3.1 15.0.1, 14.3.1
  5. markdown-it: Quadratic complexity DoS in smartquotes rule via replaceAt string operations
    Medium · 5.3 CVE-2026-48988 < 14.2.0 14.2.0
  6. markdown-it is has a Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS)
    Medium · 5.3 CVE-2026-2327 >= 13.0.0, < 14.1.1 14.1.1
  7. markdown-it vulnerable to Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity this entry
    High · 7.5 CVE-2015-10005 < 3.0.0 3.0.0
  8. markdown-it < 1.3.2 - Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
    Medium · 5.3 CVE-2022-21670 < 12.3.2 12.3.2

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