CVE-2026-86434

commonmark 2.0.0 through 2.8.3 Denial of Service via Slug Collision

Published Sep 7, 2026 CVSS 4.0 · 8.7 High EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed
Description
league/commonmark versions >= 2.0.0 and < 2.8.4 (patched in 2.9.0) contain a denial of service vulnerability in UniqueSlugNormalizer::normalize(), which restarts its numeric-suffix search from 1 on every slug collision, resulting in O(K^2) time complexity for K headings that collapse to the same base slug. The vulnerable path is reached when HeadingPermalinkExtension, FootnoteExtension, or TableOfContentsExtension is registered. An unauthenticated attacker can force many headings onto a single base slug (e.g., via empty ATX headings, identical heading text, or punctuation-only headings) in a small Markdown document, consuming excessive CPU and denying service.

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': 'none', 'Technical Impact': 'partial'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description league/commonmark versions >= 2.0.0 and < 2.8.4 (patched in 2.9.0) contain a denial of service vulnerability in UniqueSlugNormalizer::normalize(), which restarts its numeric-suffix search from 1 on every slug collision, resulting in O(K^2) time complexity for K headings that collapse to the same base slug. The vulnerable path is reached when HeadingPermalinkExtension, FootnoteExtension, or TableOfContentsExtension is registered. An unauthenticated attacker can force many headings onto a single base slug (e.g., via empty ATX headings, identical heading text, or punctuation-only headings) in a small Markdown document, consuming excessive CPU and denying service.
Title commonmark 2.0.0 through 2.8.3 Denial of Service via Slug Collision
First Time appeared Thephpleague
Thephpleague commonmark
Weaknesses CWE-407
CPEs cpe:2.3:a:thephpleague:commonmark:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Vendors & Products Thephpleague
Thephpleague commonmark
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 7.5, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H'}

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'}

Weaknesses

Sources

Status
PUBLISHED
Assigner
VulnCheck
Published
Updated
Oct 8, 2026, 3:25 PM
Reserved
Sep 7, 2026, 12:34 PM
Status
Awaiting Analysis
Published
Sep 7, 2026, 1:20 PM
Modified
Oct 8, 2026, 4:17 PM