CVE-2026-76098: Mistune · Denial of Service — RecursionError via Excessive Emphasis Markers in Markdown
Affects jupyterlabSource GCVE Database
Not known to be exploited · CVSS 7.5 High : upgrade to 4.6.2 soon.
Data as of 30 Oct 2026, 09:01 UTC
- Patch
- Available – fixed in 4.6.2
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:HExploitation evidence
Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 24 Aug 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.
What to do
Upgrade jupyterlab to 4.6.2.
Affected software
| Product | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
Homebrewjupyterlabpkg:brew/jupyterlabOther threats | Affected
| Fixed in
|
Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.
AI-suggested
A fix is available in mistune version 4.6.2. Users should upgrade to this version or later. The vendor recommends adding a maximum nesting depth limit during emphasis parsing to prevent excessive recursion or refactoring the renderer to use an iterative approach. As a defense-in-depth measure, applications may increase Python's recursion limit or implement request-level timeouts to mitigate impact. Since a patch is available, upgrading is the primary recommended action.
Description
Mistune v3.3.2 suffers from a Denial of Service vulnerability caused by uncontrolled recursion when rendering deeply nested emphasis tokens in Markdown. Submitting Markdown with about 1,000 consecutive asterisks triggers approximately 500 levels of nested <strong> tags, exceeding Python's recursion limit and causing a RecursionError crash. This affects all mistune APIs including markdown() and html(). The vulnerability has a CVSS score of 7.5 (High) and can be exploited remotely without authentication. A fix is available in version 4.6.2.
References
- github.com/lepture/mistune/security/advisories/GHSA-6m44-fpc8-c3rq (opens in a new tab)
- nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-76098 (opens in a new tab)
- github.com/lepture/mistune/commit/0938fb781d0aded99de801b340ec1f8debeae5b2 (opens in a new tab)
- github.com/lepture/mistune (opens in a new tab)
- github.com/lepture/mistune/releases/tag/v3.3.3 (opens in a new tab)