CVE-2023-26485 (published 2023-03-31T23:15Z)

cmark-gfm is GitHub\'s fork of cmark, a CommonMark parsing and rendering library and program in C. A polynomial time complexity issue in cmark-gfm may lead to unbounded resource exhaustion and subsequent denial of service. This CVE covers quadratic complexity issues when parsing text which leads with either large numbers of `_` characters. This issue has been addressed in version 0.29.0.gfm.10. Users are advised to upgrade. Users unable to upgrade should validate that their input comes from trusted sources.\n\n\n\n\n### Impact\n\nA polynomial time complexity issue in cmark-gfm may lead to unbounded resource exhaustion and subsequent denial of service.\n\n### Proof of concept\n\n```\n$ ~/cmark-gfm$ python3 -c \'pad = "_" * 100000; print(pad + "." + pad, end="")\' | time ./build/src/cmark-gfm --to plaintext\n```\n\nIncreasing the number 10000 in the above commands causes the running time to increase quadratically.\n\n### Patches\n\nThis vulnerability have been patched in 0.29.0.gfm.10.\n\n### Note on cmark and cmark-gfm\n\nXXX: TBD\n\n[cmark-gfm](https://github.com/github/cmark-gfm) is a fork of [cmark](https://github.com/commonmark/cmark) that adds the GitHub Flavored Markdown extensions. The two codebases have diverged over time, but share a common core. These bugs affect both `cmark` and `cmark-gfm`. \n\n### Credit\n\nWe would like to thank @gravypod for reporting this vulnerability.\n\n### References\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_complexity\n\n### For more information\n\nIf you have any questions or comments about this advisory:\n\n* Open an issue in [github/cmark-gfm](https://github.com/github/cmark-gfm)\n

CVSS v3 base score: 7.5, HIGH (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H)

Weakness information:
cwe_id: CWE-407
cwe_name: Inefficient Algorithmic Complexity
description: An algorithm in a product has an inefficient worst-case computational complexity that may be detrimental to system performance and can be triggered by an attacker, typically using crafted manipulations that ensure that the worst case is being reached.
extended_description: 
            
         
         
cwe_id: CWE-400
cwe_name: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
description: The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource, thereby enabling an actor to influence the amount of resources consumed, eventually leading to the exhaustion of available resources.
extended_description: 
            Limited resources include memory, file system storage, database connection pool entries, and CPU. If an attacker can trigger the allocation of these limited resources, but the number or size of the resources is not controlled, then the attacker could cause a denial of service that consumes all available resources. This would prevent valid users from accessing the product, and it could potentially have an impact on the surrounding environment. For example, a memory exhaustion attack against an application could slow down the application as well as its host operating system.
            There are at least three distinct scenarios which can commonly lead to resource exhaustion:
               
                  Lack of throttling for the number of allocated resources
                  Losing all references to a resource before reaching the shutdown stage
                  Not closing/returning a resource after processing
               
            Resource exhaustion problems are often result due to an incorrect implementation of the following situations:
               
                  Error conditions and other exceptional circumstances.
                  Confusion over which part of the program is responsible for releasing the resource.
               
         
         

Fix information:
repo_url: https://github.com/github/cmark-gfm
commit_details: repo_url: https://github.com/github/cmark-gfm
author: Bas Alberts
author_date: 2023-03-31 13:29:29-04:00
msg: Merge pull request from GHSA-r8vr-c48j-fcc5

Fix quadratic behavior in rendering
repository: repo_url: https://github.com/github/cmark-gfm
repo_name: github/cmark-gfm
description: GitHub's fork of cmark, a CommonMark parsing and rendering library and program in C
repo_language: C
owner: github