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.

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Advisories
Source ID Title
Github GHSA Github GHSA GHSA-8mp2-v27r-99xp Mistune has a ReDoS in LINK_TITLE_RE that allows denial of service via crafted Markdown input
Fixes

Solution

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Workaround

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History

Wed, 06 May 2026 19:30:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'yes', 'Exploitation': 'poc', 'Technical Impact': 'partial'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}


Wed, 06 May 2026 18:00:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
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.
Title Mistune ReDoS in LINK_TITLE_RE allows denial of service with crafted Markdown titles
Weaknesses CWE-1333
References
Metrics cvssV4_0

{'score': 8.7, 'vector': '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'}


Projects

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cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: GitHub_M

Published:

Updated: 2026-05-06T19:02:51.759Z

Reserved: 2026-03-17T19:27:06.345Z

Link: CVE-2026-33079

cve-icon Vulnrichment

Updated: 2026-05-06T19:02:48.489Z

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-05-06T18:16:03.097

Modified: 2026-05-06T20:16:31.370

Link: CVE-2026-33079

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

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Weaknesses