GHSA-5v2h-r2cx-5xgj
Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity in marked
Packages
Details
As written in the advisory (Markdown source, shown as plain text).
### Impact
_What kind of vulnerability is it?_
Denial of service.
The regular expression `inline.reflinkSearch` may cause catastrophic backtracking against some strings.
PoC is the following.
```javascript
import * as marked from 'marked';
console.log(marked.parse(`[x]: x
\\[\\](\\[\\](\\[\\](\\[\\](\\[\\](\\[\\](\\[\\](\\[\\](\\[\\](\\[\\](\\[\\](\\[\\](\\[\\](\\[\\](\\[\\](\\[\\](\\[\\](\\[\\](\\[\\](\\[\\](\\[\\](\\[\\](\\[\\](\\[\\](\\[\\](\\[\\](\\[\\](\\[\\](\\[\\](\\[\\](`));
```
_Who is impacted?_
Anyone who runs untrusted markdown through marked and does not use a worker with a time limit.
### Patches
_Has the problem been patched?_
Yes
_What versions should users upgrade to?_
4.0.10
### Workarounds
_Is there a way for users to fix or remediate the vulnerability without upgrading?_
Do not run untrusted markdown through marked or run marked on a [worker](https://marked.js.org/using_advanced#workers) thread and set a reasonable time limit to prevent draining resources.
### References
_Are there any links users can visit to find out more?_
- https://marked.js.org/using_advanced#workers
- https://owasp.org/www-community/attacks/Regular_expression_Denial_of_Service_-_ReDoS
### For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:
* Open an issue in [marked](https://github.com/markedjs/marked)
References
External links from the advisory. They lead to third-party sites.
- https://github.com/markedjs/marked/security/advisories/GHSA-5v2h-r2cx-5xgj
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-21681
- https://github.com/markedjs/marked/commit/8f806573a3f6c6b7a39b8cdb66ab5ebb8d55a5f5
- https://github.com/markedjs/marked/commit/c4a3ccd344b6929afa8a1d50ac54a721e57012c0
- https://github.com/markedjs/marked
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[email protected]/message/AIXDMC3CSHYW3YWVSQOXAWLUYQHAO5UX