Service interruption via super-linear Markdown parsing
Published Sep 7, 2026 · Updated Sep 9, 2026
Denial of service in The PHP League CommonMark 0.6.0 through 2.9.0 allows remote attackers to interrupt service via crafted Markdown. FencedCodeStartParser retries a non-possessive backtick quantifier, reference lookup renormalizes growing nested spans, and delimiter cache keys retain unbounded run lengths. The default converter is affected when an application accepts untrusted Markdown; concurrent requests can occupy all PHP workers, while data and rendered output remain unchanged.
Summary
What happened
Denial of service in The PHP League CommonMark 0.6.0 through 2.9.0 allows remote attackers to interrupt service via crafted Markdown. FencedCodeStartParser retries a non-possessive backtick quantifier, reference lookup renormalizes growing nested spans, and delimiter cache keys retain unbounded run lengths. The default converter is affected when an application accepts untrusted Markdown; concurrent requests can occupy all PHP workers, while data and rendered output remain unchanged.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-86430
- Published
- Sep 7, 2026
- Updated
- Sep 9, 2026
- Vendor
- The PHP League
- Product
- CommonMark
- Classifications
- CWE-1050, CWE-407, CWE-1333, T1499.004
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- unauthenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Sep 7, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Sep 9, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=0.6.0 <2.9.1
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
CVSS describes severity. EPSS estimates exploitation probability.
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
- Upstream crafted-Markdown timing demonstrationsproof of concept · demonstrated
Labels summarize the accepted research assessment. They do not indicate a test against your environment.
Technologies
Your stack
See the directory against your own environment.
Your stack
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