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.

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed that are impacted by a vulnerability without a vendor supplied patch available.

  - 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. (CVE-2026-48988)

Note that Nessus relies on the presence of the package as reported by the vendor.

There are packages installed that are affected by a vulnerability referenced in the following CVE:

  - 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. (CVE-2026-48988)

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
321702	Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2026-48988	Nessus	Misc.	medium
443233	SCA: security update for markdown-it (GHSA-6v5v-wf23-fmfq)	Tenable Cloud Security	SCA Checks	medium
443233	SCA: security update for markdown-it (GHSA-6v5v-wf23-fmfq)	Tenable Self-Hosted Container Security	SCA Checks	medium

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2026-48988

medium

Tenable Plugins

medium

medium

medium