CVE-2026-121438

Mistune before 3.3.3 Denial of Service via Balanced Bracket Link Parsing

Published Nov 3, 2026 CVSS 4.0 · 6.9 Medium EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed
Description
Mistune before 3.3.3 contains a denial of service vulnerability in InlineParser.parse_link that allows attackers to cause quadratic CPU growth by supplying balanced nested brackets. Attackers can submit crafted Markdown with thousands of nested bracket pairs not forming a valid link, triggering repeated _contains_nested_link scans that exhaust CPU in parsing applications.

Remediation

No solution or workaround provided in the CVE record

Tracking

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Advisories

No advisories available
History
Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics ssvc

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

Type Values Removed Values Added
First Time appeared Lepture
Lepture mistune
Vendors & Products Lepture
Lepture mistune
Type Values Removed Values Added
Description Mistune before 3.3.3 contains a denial of service vulnerability in InlineParser.parse_link that allows attackers to cause quadratic CPU growth by supplying balanced nested brackets. Attackers can submit crafted Markdown with thousands of nested bracket pairs not forming a valid link, triggering repeated _contains_nested_link scans that exhaust CPU in parsing applications.
Title Mistune before 3.3.3 Denial of Service via Balanced Bracket Link Parsing
First Time appeared Mistune Project
Mistune Project mistune
Weaknesses CWE-400
CPEs cpe:2.3:a:mistune_project:mistune:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Vendors & Products Mistune Project
Mistune Project mistune
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 5.3, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L'}

cvssV4_0

{'score': 6.9, 'vector': 'CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N'}

Weaknesses

Sources

Status
PUBLISHED
Assigner
VulnCheck
Published
Updated
Nov 7, 2026, 3:02 AM
Reserved
Nov 3, 2026, 12:32 PM
Status
Deferred
Published
Nov 3, 2026, 3:17 PM
Modified
Nov 7, 2026, 3:17 AM
Severity
Moderate
Public date
Nov 3, 2026, 2:28 PM