Hash-Collision Denial-of-Service Vulnerability in snudown
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Network
- Privileges required
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Impact type
- Information disclosure, Denial of service
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- None · None · High
- Fix status
- Fixed
Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · CNA. Fix status from CNA. Impact type from CWE-327 and CWE-400.
Summary
Snudown is a reddit-specific fork of the Sundown Markdown parser used by GitHub, with Python integration added. In affected versions snudown was found to be vulnerable to denial of service attacks to its reference table implementation. References written in markdown ` [reference_name]: https://www.example.com` are inserted into a hash table which was found to have a weak hash function, meaning that an attacker can reliably generate a large number of collisions for it. This makes the hash table vulnerable to a hash-collision DoS attack, a type of algorithmic complexity attack. Further the hash table allowed for duplicate entries resulting in long retrieval times. Proofs of concept and further discussion of the hash collision issue are discussed on the snudown GHSA(https://github.com/reddit/snudown/security/advisories/GHSA-6gvv-9q92-w5f6). Users are advised to update to version 1.7.0.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
Not available: CISA has not published SSVC decision points for this record.
Affected products
Remediation
- Fix · CNA snudown (reddit) Fixed in 1.7.0
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2021-41168
References
Sources
This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. Sources and licences