CVE-2026-54525Markdown Preview Enhanced: One Click RCE via Markdown Link Command Injection on Windows
- 8.8HighCVSS base score
- 0.43%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 62% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- NonePublic exploitsnone known yet
Description
Markdown Preview Enhanced is a Markdown preview extension for Visual Studio Code. Prior to 0.8.28, Markdown Preview Enhanced preview-link handling passes a decoded, Markdown-controlled link target to a Windows file-opening helper that invokes child_process.exec with the start command. When a Windows user opens an untrusted Markdown file and clicks a crafted external or unsupported-scheme link, shell metacharacters in the decoded target are interpreted by cmd.exe as command separators, allowing an attacker-selected command to run with the privileges of the current VS Code user. The attack requires one normal preview-link click but does not require malicious workspace configuration, script execution to be enabled, or additional files. This issue is fixed in version 0.8.28.
Timeline
ID reserved
By GitHub_M
- 4 months later
· 4 months later
Published
- 1 day later
· 1 day 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) | 3.1 | High8.8 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |
| NVDNVD · Awaiting Analysis | 3.1 | High8.8 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.43% · top 62% of all CVEs (14 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: total
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: High 8.8.
Affected products
shd101wyy · vscode-markdown-preview-enhanced
- affected < 0.8.28
References
References7
- https://github.com/shd101wyy/vscode-markdown-preview-enhanced/security/advisories/GHSA-7v6f-3vq6-r373 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_CONFIRM
- https://github.com/shd101wyy/crossnote/pull/442 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/shd101wyy/vscode-markdown-preview-enhanced/pull/2318 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/shd101wyy/crossnote/commit/5588ca2121c3da43fe331575dc5cf4ef347b91ee (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/shd101wyy/vscode-markdown-preview-enhanced/commit/dcd80281c986293b93d9f1af34ced64dcb230c77 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/shd101wyy/crossnote/releases/tag/0.9.29 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/shd101wyy/vscode-markdown-preview-enhanced/releases/tag/0.8.28 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISC
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-2026-101581 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (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-2026-54525)Record last updated .