CVE-2026-48988

MEDIUMPre-NVD 5.35.3—
EchelonGraph scoreMEDIUM confidence

This medium-severity CVE scores 5.3 under a secondary CVSS source (NVD's own analysis pending). EPSS exploit probability: 0.3%, top 78% of all CVEs by exploit prediction. GitHub Security Advisory data not yet ingested — confidence will rise once GHSA publishes (typical lag: hours to days for open-source ecosystem CVEs; never for infrastructure-only CVEs).

Triggered by: NVD CVSS baseline
Sources: epss, secondary
5.3
EchelonGraph verdictMonitorLow exploitation likelihood right now — keep watching.
  • Lower severity and no public exploit yet
CISA-KEV: Not listedEPSS: 0%CVSS: 5.3Exploit: NoneExposed: 0

No vendor fix yet — apply a workaround or compensating control (WAF / firewall / segmentation) and watch for a patch.

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.

CVSS v3
5.3
EG Score
5.3(medium)
EPSS
22.3%
KEV
Not listed

Published

June 15, 2026

Last Modified

June 24, 2026

Advisory Details (2)

Auto-updated Jun 17, 2026
🔬 Proof of concept available. Patch available. Sources: github_commit, github.
github Patch Available🟡 PoC Available

Quadratic complexity DoS in smartquotes rule via replaceAt string operations · Advisory · markdown-it/markdown-it · GitHub

https://github.com/markdown-it/markdown-it/security/advisories/GHSA-6v5v-wf23-fmfq
github_commit

commit 9ce2087562c4 (markdown-it/markdown-it)

Fix landed in markdown-it/markdown-it commit 9ce2087562c4 — awaiting tagged release

https://github.com/markdown-it/markdown-it/commit/9ce2087562c45d1e5ddd9f76b990f4b3fbe040e5

Vendor Advisories for CVE-2026-48988(1)

These vendors published their own advisory mentioning this CVE — often with vendor-specific remediation steps + affected product lists not in NVD.

Affected Packages

(1 across 1 ecosystem)
npm(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFixed inDependents
markdown-it—14.2.0—

Weakness Classification(1)

MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.

Data Freshness Timeline

(refreshed 13× in last 7d / 47× in last 30d)

Each row is a source pipeline that fetched or updated this CVE on that date, with what changed. For example, "NVD update" means NVD published or revised its analysis for this CVE; "MITRE cvelistV5" means we ingested or refreshed it from the CNA feed. Most recent first.

  1. 2026-07-07 00:15 UTCEG score recompute
  2. 2026-07-06 16:27 UTCEPSS rescore
  3. 2026-07-06 02:23 UTCEPSS rescore
  4. 2026-07-05 21:38 UTCEG score recompute
  5. 2026-07-05 02:30 UTCEPSS rescore
  6. 2026-07-04 20:35 UTCEG score recompute
  7. 2026-07-04 06:31 UTCEPSS rescore
  8. 2026-07-03 19:31 UTCEG score recompute
  9. 2026-07-02 18:27 UTCEG score recompute
  10. 2026-07-01 17:23 UTCEG score recompute
  11. 2026-07-01 15:07 UTCEPSS rescore
  12. 2026-06-30 23:22 UTCEPSS rescore
  13. 2026-06-30 16:16 UTCEG score recompute
  14. 2026-06-29 15:11 UTCEG score recompute
  15. 2026-06-29 14:06 UTCEPSS rescore
  16. 2026-06-29 14:06 UTCEPSS rescore
  17. 2026-06-28 14:07 UTCEPSS rescore
  18. 2026-06-28 14:05 UTCEG score recompute
  19. 2026-06-28 04:56 UTCEPSS rescore
  20. 2026-06-28 04:56 UTCEPSS rescore
  21. 2026-06-27 13:00 UTCEG score recompute
  22. 2026-06-27 03:08 UTCEPSS rescore
  23. 2026-06-26 11:57 UTCEG score recompute
  24. 2026-06-25 13:49 UTCEPSS rescore
  25. 2026-06-25 07:47 UTCEG score recompute
Show 22 more
  1. 2026-06-24 14:05 UTCEPSS rescore
  2. 2026-06-24 06:43 UTCEG score recompute
  3. 2026-06-23 21:33 UTCEPSS rescore
  4. 2026-06-23 21:33 UTCEPSS rescore
  5. 2026-06-23 05:18 UTCEG score recompute
  6. 2026-06-22 14:25 UTCEPSS rescore
  7. 2026-06-22 14:25 UTCEPSS rescore
  8. 2026-06-22 03:55 UTCEG score recompute
  9. 2026-06-21 14:56 UTCEPSS rescore
  10. 2026-06-21 14:56 UTCEPSS rescore
  11. 2026-06-21 02:52 UTCEG score recompute
  12. 2026-06-21 01:59 UTCEPSS rescore
  13. 2026-06-21 01:59 UTCEPSS rescore
  14. 2026-06-20 01:26 UTCEG score recompute
  15. 2026-06-19 19:26 UTCEPSS rescore
  16. 2026-06-19 19:26 UTCEPSS rescore
  17. 2026-06-18 23:56 UTCEG score recompute
  18. 2026-06-18 17:52 UTCEPSS rescore
  19. 2026-06-18 17:52 UTCEPSS rescore
  20. 2026-06-17 22:53 UTCEG score recompute
  21. 2026-06-16 21:50 UTCEG score recompute
  22. 2026-06-15 20:45 UTCEG score recompute

Related CVEs(same CWE)

Frequently asked(5)

What is CVE-2026-48988?
CVE-2026-48988 is a medium vulnerability published on June 15, 2026. 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…
When was CVE-2026-48988 disclosed?
CVE-2026-48988 was first published in the National Vulnerability Database on June 15, 2026, with the most recent update on June 24, 2026. EchelonGraph re-ingests CVE updates from NVD on a 2-hour cycle, so this page reflects the latest published state.
Is CVE-2026-48988 actively exploited?
CVE-2026-48988 is not currently on CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. FIRST EPSS estimates a 22.3% percentile likelihood of exploitation in the next 30 days — higher percentiles indicate greater predicted risk.
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2026-48988?
CVE-2026-48988 has a CVSS v3 base score of 5.3 (NVD).
How do I remediate CVE-2026-48988?
Patch to the fixed version published by the affected vendor. Where vendor advisories exist for CVE-2026-48988, EchelonGraph cross-links them in the Vendor Advisories panel below — those typically contain the canonical remediation steps, fixed version numbers, and any vendor-specific mitigations.

Dependency Blast Radius

See which npm, PyPI, Go, and Maven packages are affected by CVE-2026-48988

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