CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2026-44898 — Mistune is a Python Markdown parser with renderers and plugins

Medium CVSS 6.1

Mistune is a Python Markdown parser with renderers and plugins. Prior to 3.2.1, render_toc_ul() builds a <ul> table-of-contents tree from a list of (level, id, text) tuples. Both the id value (used as href="#<id>") and the text value (used as the visible link label) are inserted into <a> tags via a plain Python format string — with no HTML escaping applied to either value. When heading IDs are derived from user-supplied heading text (the standard use-case for readable slug anchors), an attacker can craft a heading whose text breaks out of the href="#..." attribute context, injecting arbitrary HTML tags including <script> blocks directly into the rendered TOC. This vulnerability is fixed in 3.2.1.

Severity
Medium
CVSS
6.1 (3.1)
Published
2026-05-26
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
python/pypi
Weaknesses
CWE-79

Affected products

  • mistune_project / mistune

Matched remediation archetype

Cross-site scripting and unsafe browser output

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Check exposure

  • Trace reflected, stored, and DOM-derived untrusted values into HTML, attributes, URLs, styles, scripts, and client-side template sinks.
  • Identify affected origins, authenticated user roles, sensitive browser capabilities, and where content is shared across tenants.
  • Review framework escaping, rich-text sanitization, legacy templates, and client-side rendering paths.

Remediate safely

  • Use context-aware framework output encoding and safe DOM APIs; keep untrusted data out of executable contexts.
  • Sanitize intentionally supported markup with a maintained allowlist policy and validate URLs and attributes separately.
  • Update affected rendering components and add tests for every output context using inert sentinel markup.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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