Resource exhaustion in Lepture Mistune

CVE-2026-49851

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.

Vulnerability class: DoS (Denial of Service)

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.5 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.006 (48.1th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 48th percentile — 48.1% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2026-49851: held from 0.006 to 0.006.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.006 · newest: 0.006 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-49851?
CVE-2026-49851 is a high-severity vulnerability in Lepture Mistune, classified under Uncontrolled Resource Consumption. CVSS score: 7.5/10. Published 2026-06-24.
How severe is CVE-2026-49851?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.5 out of 10.