Mend.io Vulnerability Database
The largest open source vulnerability database
What is a Vulnerability ID?
New vulnerability? Tell us about it!
CVE-2026-54888
Published:June 29, 2026
Updated:July 21, 2026
Uncontrolled Recursion vulnerability in leandrocp mdex allows denial of service via deeply nested Markdown input. mdex converts between an Elixir %MDEx.Document{} struct and Comrak's internal AST using two mutually recursive Rust functions, ex_document_to_comrak_ast and comrak_ast_to_ex_document, in the NIF source file document.rs. Neither function enforces a maximum nesting depth, so the recursion depth is bounded only by the structure of the input. An attacker who can get a Markdown document rendered (for example through MDEx.parse_document!/1 or MDEx.to_html/1) can supply a document with thousands of nested block quotes, which drives unbounded recursion across the NIF boundary and exhausts the native C stack. Because the resulting stack overflow is an uncatchable SIGSEGV raised inside a NIF, it cannot be contained by the Erlang runtime. It terminates the operating system process running the BEAM, killing every Elixir and Erlang process on the node, not just the caller that triggered the render. No authentication or special privileges are required. The vulnerable conversion code was extracted from mdex into the separate mdex_native package starting in mdex 0.12.3. This issue affects mdex from 0.3.0 before 0.12.3 and mdex_native from 0.1.0 before 0.2.3.
Affected Packages
https://github.com/leandrocp/mdex_native.git (GITHUB):
Affected version(s) >=v0.1.1 <v0.2.3
Fix Suggestion:
Update to version v0.2.3
mdex (HEX):
Affected version(s) >=0.3.0 <0.12.3
Fix Suggestion:
Update to version 0.12.3
mdex_native (HEX):
Affected version(s) >=0.1.0 <0.2.3
Fix Suggestion:
Update to version 0.2.3
Do you need more information?
Contact Us
CVSS v4
Base Score:
6.9
Attack Vector
LOCAL
Attack Complexity
LOW
Attack Requirements
NONE
Privileges Required
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Vulnerable System Confidentiality
NONE
Vulnerable System Integrity
NONE
Vulnerable System Availability
HIGH
Subsequent System Confidentiality
NONE
Subsequent System Integrity
NONE
Subsequent System Availability
NONE
CVSS v3
Base Score:
6.2
Attack Vector
LOCAL
Attack Complexity
LOW
Privileges Required
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
NONE
Integrity
NONE
Availability
HIGH
Weakness Type (CWE)
Uncontrolled Recursion
EPSS
Base Score:
0.17