CVE-2026-48988
markdown-it: Quadratic complexity DoS in smartquotes rule via replaceAt string operations
Description
markdown-it is a Markdown parser. Versions 14.1.1 and below contain a denial-of-service vulnerability when typographer: true is enabled, due to quadratic (O(n^2)) processing in the smartquotes rule. The issue stems from repeatedly modifying strings with replaceAt(), which performs O(n) slicing and concatenation per quote character. This can cause excessive CPU consumption when parsing quote-heavy, user-supplied markdown and may let attackers degrade or disrupt service availability. Although typographer is disabled by default, many production apps enable it for smart typography, making the issue relevant. This issue has been fixed in version 14.2.0.
INFO
Published Date :
June 17, 2026, 8:54 p.m.
Last Modified :
June 17, 2026, 8:54 p.m.
Remotely Exploit :
No
Source :
GitHub_M
Affected Products
The following products are affected by CVE-2026-48988
vulnerability.
Even if cvefeed.io is aware of the exact versions of the
products
that
are
affected, the information is not represented in the table below.
No affected product recoded yet
Solution
- Update markdown-it to version 14.2.0.
- Disable the typographer option if updating is not possible.
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CVE-2026-48988 vulnerability anywhere in the article.