High 7.5Published Oct 19, 2026

CVE-2026-111759markdown-it: Quadratic complexity in smartquotes with unmatched closing quotes

Updated under an hour ago (2026-10-21 04:20 UTC)

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It affects markdown-it. Add what you run to find out whether that includes you.

No exploitation reported and no EPSS estimate yet.

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Every CVE for markdown-it

Exploited in the last 30 days

markdown-it is a Markdown parser. Prior to 14.3.2 and 15.0.2, when typographer: true is enabled, specially crafted Markdown can cause quadratic processing time in the smartquotes rule, potentially leading to denial of service in applications processing untrusted input. Many opening double quotes followed by unmatched closing single quotes cause repeated scans of the entire opener stack. The same issue occurs with the quote types reversed. The default configuration (typographer: false) is not affected, but this option is enabled with high probability. This issue is fixed in versions 14.3.2 and 15.0.2.

CVSS: 7.5 HIGH (v3.1, CNA)CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Weakness (CWE): CWE-400, CWE-407
Known exploited: Not in CISA's KEV catalog
EPSS (exploitation in the next 30 days): Not loaded for this CVE
Assigned by: GitHub_M
NVD analysis: Awaiting Analysis
Record last updated: Oct 19, 2026
First seen by InfoSec Signals: Oct 19, 2026

Affected products

Affected products

markdown-it markdown-it markdown_it:markdown_it (from the name)	from 15.0.0, < 15.0.2; before 14.3.2	CNA record

References

https://github.com/markdown-it/markdown-it/security/advisories/GHSA-r7fv-28h4-cvq7x-refsource-confirm
https://github.com/markdown-it/markdown-it/commit/1b379c1b6d0522421bd1a51b77337c79af2c8670x-refsource-misc
https://github.com/markdown-it/markdown-it/commit/cf27366035edf9196667110c47d9d67b030a4152x-refsource-misc
https://github.com/markdown-it/markdown-it/commit/daf5a3c32303e5d9de01b12eeb725fb5990b8162x-refsource-misc
https://github.com/markdown-it/markdown-it/releases/tag/14.3.2x-refsource-misc
https://github.com/markdown-it/markdown-it/releases/tag/15.0.2x-refsource-misc

The CVE record on cve.org NVD's entry

The CVE record is authoritative. Products marked “from the name” were identified from the CNA's free-text names, not a CPE, and are matched less certainly. This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.