CVE-2026-48988 PUBLISHED

markdown-it: Quadratic complexity DoS in smartquotes rule via replaceAt string operations

Assigner: GitHub_M
Reserved: 26.05.2026 Published: 17.06.2026 Updated: 17.06.2026

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.

Metrics

CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
CVSS Score: 5.3

Product Status

Vendor markdown-it
Product markdown-it
Versions
  • Version < 14.2.0 is affected

References

Problem Types

  • CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption CWE