Unbounded native memory leak in mdex escaped-tag rendering enables unauthenticated denial of service
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Local
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Attack requirements
- None
- Impact type
- Denial of service
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- None · None · High
- Fix status
- Fixed
Attack profile from CVSS 4.0 · CNA. Fix status from CNA. Impact type from CWE-401.
Summary
Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime vulnerability in leandrocp mdex and mdex_native allows an attacker who controls a rendered document to cause a denial of service through unbounded native memory exhaustion. The native rendering code permanently leaks memory when rendering a document that contains escaped-tag nodes. The conversion of each %MDEx.EscapedTag{} node into its native representation (From<ExEscapedTag> for NodeValue in the Rust NIF) calls Box::leak on the caller-supplied literal string, which surrenders the backing allocation so that it lives for the entire lifetime of the operating system process and is never freed. Both the byte length of each literal and the number of escaped-tag nodes in a document are attacker-controlled, and there is no size cap, rate limit, or string interning on this path. Every render of a document containing escaped-tag nodes therefore leaks literal_size x node_count bytes that can never be reclaimed, and repeated renders accumulate without bound. Rendering reaches this path through the public MDEx.to_html/1 entry point and any other API that renders a supplied %MDEx.Document{}. Any application that uses mdex (or mdex_native directly) to render documents derived from user-supplied content is affected. Because the leaked memory is never reclaimed for the life of the BEAM process, an attacker can drive resident memory upward without limit until the node exhausts memory and crashes, taking down every process on it. The vulnerable native code originally shipped inside mdex (in native/comrak_nif/src/types/document.rs) and was later extracted into the separate mdex_native package (native/mdex_native_nif/src/types/document.rs), where it remains unpatched. This issue affects mdex from 0.11.0 before 0.12.3, and mdex_native from 0.1.0 before 0.2.3.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3
- Exploitation
- Poc
- Automatable
- No
- Technical impact
- Partial
The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.
Affected products
Remediation
- Fix · CNA mdex (leandrocp) Fixed in 0.12.3
- Fix · CNA mdex_native (leandrocp) Fixed in 0.2.3
Fixed in the same release
Records fixed by the same vendor advisory or release, as the CNA lists them.
- Release ·
leandrocp mdex, mdex_native 0.12.3, 0.2.3, 6ed94d905f97af188323f042698ae841c02293b4
4 records Highest priority Priority MEDIUM 2 MEDIUM, 2 LOW
Other records, highest priority first
- TI-2026-39661 Uncontrolled recursion over deeply nested Markdown crashes the BEAM in mdexPriority MEDIUM 64
- TI-2026-38510 Unbounded memory allocation in highlight_lines range expansion in mdexPriority LOW 30
- TI-2026-38509 Cross-site scripting in MDEx via unescaped highlight_lines_class code-fence attributePriority LOW 13
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-53429
References
More leandrocp vulnerabilities
- TI-2026-39661 Uncontrolled recursion over deeply nested Markdown crashes the BEAM in mdex CVSS 4.0MEDIUM 6.9
- TI-2026-39662 Unsanitized URL schemes in MDEx Quill Delta output allow javascript: injection (XSS) CVSS 4.0MEDIUM 5.1
- TI-2026-38508 Atom-table exhaustion denial-of-service via JSON parse_document in MDEx CVSS 4.0HIGH 8.2
- TI-2026-38510 Unbounded memory allocation in highlight_lines range expansion in mdex CVSS 4.0MEDIUM 6.9
- TI-2026-38509 Cross-site scripting in MDEx via unescaped highlight_lines_class code-fence attribute CVSS 4.0LOW 2.3
Sources
This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. Sources and licences