GHSA-g2gp-3wwq-f4ph json
league/commonmark: Denial of service via adjacent inline attribute blocks
published 3mo ago modified 3mo ago
- cvss
- 7.5
- version 3.1, GitHub
- cisa kev
- Not listed
- not in CISA's catalog
- epss
- —
- no score, EPSS covers CVEs only
- public exploits
- 0
- none known
Summary
### Impact
With the Attributes extension enabled, `AttributesListener::findTargetAndDirection()` resolves each attribute node's target by walking outward through its siblings. For a run of N adjacent inline attribute blocks placed at the start of a block (with nothing to their left), each node scans the **entire** sibling list to the far-right end before giving up and falling back to the parent. Each resolution is therefore Θ(N) and the whole run is **Θ(N²)**.
Reaching the path requires `AttributesExtension` (opt-in, but first-party: `League\CommonMark\Extension\Attributes\AttributesExtension`). No other configuration matters — the quadratic walk runs unconditionally during parsing and is **not** gated by the `attributes/allow` allow-list, the `on*` hardening added in 2.7.0, or `allow_unsafe_links`. An unauthenticated attacker can submit a **~32 KB** input (`{#a}` repeated 8,000 times) that takes **over 5 seconds** to convert, with time growing quadratically in input length — a cheap denial of service. Availability impact only. **The Attributes extension was introduced in 1.5.0 (May 2020) with this outward-walk resolver present from the first commit, so all releases from 1.5.0 onward (including every 2.x) are affected.**
### Workarounds
There is no library-level configuration that gates the quadratic walk. Integrators who cannot upgrade can only reduce exposure indirectly:
- **Disable the Attributes extension** for untrusted input, or - **Impose a strict maximum input length before conversion** — noting that because the cost is quadratic, even a modest cap must be small to meaningfully bound worst-case CPU.
Upgrading to a release containing the fix is recommended.
Patch / fix
- packagist league/commonmark 2.9.0
Is GHSA-g2gp-3wwq-f4ph in your dependencies? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.
Check with FencerCVSS scores
| assigned by | version | score | vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| packagist | league/commonmark | >=1.5.0, <2.9.0 |
2.9.0 |
Classification
- Weakness
-
- CWE-407 Inefficient Algorithmic Complexity
References
Sources
- GitHub Advisory GHSA-g2gp-3wwq-f4ph
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