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Fencer Intel
high 7.5

CVE-2026-59928 json

Mistune block_parser: quadratic-time parsing on long lists of repeated reference-link definitions

published 4mo ago modified 17d ago also EUVD-2026-42338 , GHSA-ffq3-xpv3-j92q , PYSEC-2026-2216

cvss
7.5
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.7%
EPSS 0.7% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 51%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Mistune is a Python Markdown parser with renderers and plugins. Prior to 3.3.0, a Markdown document containing many repeated or distinct reference-link definitions causes quadratic work in src/mistune/block_parser.py and the ref_links environment dictionary handling, allowing denial of service through CPU exhaustion. This issue is fixed in version 3.3.0.

Patch / fix

  • pypi mistune 3.3.0
  • mistune_project mistune 3.3.0
  • python-mistune SLES for SAP applications 16.0, SLES 16.0 3.1.3-160000.5.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:22655-1

  • python-mistune openSUSE Leap 16.0 3.1.3-160000.5.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:21339-1

  • python-mistune Azure Linux 3.0 3.3.0-1

azure linux advisories AZL-92211

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

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Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-59928 updated cvss 6.5

mistune: Mistune: Denial of Service via crafted Markdown document with reference-link definitions

  • Red Hat Migration Toolkit for Applications 8 mta/mta-solution-server-rhel9 Red Hat OpenShift AI (RHOAI) rhoai/odh-th06-cpu-torch210-py312-rhel9, rhoai/odh-th06-cpu-torch291-py312-rhel9, rhoai/odh-th06-rocm64-torch291-py312-rhel9, rhoai/odh-th06-cuda130-torch210-py312-rhel9, rhoai/odh-th06-cuda130-torch291-py312-rhel9, rhoai/odh-pipeline-runtime-minimal-cpu-py312-rhel9, +16 more Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 python-mistune 0.8.3-15.2.el9ocp Red Hat Satellite 6 satellite/iop-advisor-engine-rhel9
    affected: workaround, no fix available “Fix deferred”

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
Proof of concept is public
Automatable
yes
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
4mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.65% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 51% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-11).

Exploits and checks

  • github.com https://github.com/lepture/mistune/security/advisories/GHSA-ffq3-xpv3-j92q referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
GitHub 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
OSV 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
pypi mistune
<3.3.0
3.3.0

Affected products

  • lepture mistune

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-407 Inefficient Algorithmic Complexity
  • CWE-1333 Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

The maintainers of lepture/mistune published their own advisory on GitHub. Reviewed sources take precedence over it.