CVE-2026-33079Mistune ReDoS in LINK_TITLE_RE allows denial of service with crafted Markdown titles
- 8.7HighCVSS base score
- 0.59%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 51% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- YesPublic exploitsa reference or SSVC says so
Description
In versions 3.0.0a1 through 3.2.0 of Mistune, there is a ReDoS (Regular Expression Denial of Service) vulnerability in `LINK_TITLE_RE` that allows an attacker who can supply Markdown for parsing to cause denial of service. The regular expression used for parsing link titles contains overlapping alternatives that can trigger catastrophic backtracking. In both the double-quoted and single-quoted branches, a backslash followed by punctuation can be matched either as an escaped punctuation sequence or as two ordinary characters, creating an ambiguous pattern inside a repeated group. If an attacker supplies Markdown containing repeated ! sequences with no closing quote, the regex engine explores an exponential number of backtracking paths. This is reachable through normal Markdown parsing of inline links and block link reference definitions. A small crafted input can therefore cause significant CPU consumption and make applications using Mistune unresponsive.
Public exploit
An exploit or proof of concept is public: anyone can try it against an unpatched system. A reference of the record is tagged as an exploit. CISA's SSVC rates its exploitation: a proof of concept is public.
Show the exploits1
References tagged exploit1 reference
- https://github.com/lepture/mistune/security/advisories/GHSA-8mp2-v27r-99xp (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_CONFIRMexploit
Timeline
ID reserved
By GitHub_M
- 50 days later
· 50 days later
Published
- 4 months later
· 4 months later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub_MCNA (assigner) | 4.0 | High8.7 | CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N |
| redhat-SADPADP (enrichment) | 3.1 | High7.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |
| NVDNVD · Deferred | 4.0 | High8.7 | CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.59% · top 51% of all CVEs (15 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: poc · Automatable: yes · Technical impact: partial
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: High 8.7.
Affected products
Affected packages
From reviewed advisories of the GitHub Advisory Database.
- PyPImistuneGHSA-8mp2-v27r-99xp (opens in a new tab)
References
References7
- https://github.com/lepture/mistune/security/advisories/GHSA-8mp2-v27r-99xp (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_CONFIRMexploit
- https://github.com/lepture/mistune/blob/df23edd60b43b639d2e6760ef9dd3d618aa11c21/src/mistune/helpers.py#L20-L25 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISC
- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-33079 (opens in a new tab)vdb-entryx_refsource_REDHAT
- RHBZ#2467298 (opens in a new tab)issue-trackingx_refsource_REDHAT
- https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/2026/cve-2026-33079.json (opens in a new tab)x_sadp-csaf-vex
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:43038 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_refsource_REDHAT
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:60520 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_refsource_REDHAT
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2026-27877 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisory GHSA-8mp2-v27r-99xp (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2026-33079)Record last updated .