Description
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.
CVSS breakdown
CVSS 4.0
Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
Low
Attack Requirements
None
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
None
Confidentiality (Vulnerable System)
None
Integrity (Vulnerable System)
None
Availability (Vulnerable System)
High
Confidentiality (Subsequent System)
None
Integrity (Subsequent System)
None
Availability (Subsequent System)
None
Affected products
- lepture / mistune< 3.3.0 – < 3.3.0