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EEF-CVE-2026-53427
No affected components available
Summary
Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in leandrocp MDEx allows stored or reflected cross-site scripting via attacker-controlled Markdown.
When syntax highlighting and full info-string forwarding (render: [full_info_string: true]) are enabled, the Lumis adapter copies the value of a code fence's highlight_lines_class info-string attribute, unescaped, into the class attribute of every rendered line. comrak_nif::lumis_adapter::LumisAdapter::parse_custom_attributes in native/comrak_nif/src/lumis_adapter.rs shlex-parses the info string and stores each key=value pair verbatim, highlight_lines_config pulls highlight_lines_class into the per-line class value, and write_highlighted interpolates that value directly into the class attribute of the per-line <div>. A single-quoted shell token preserves an inner double quote through shlex parsing, so a value such as '"><script>alert(1)</script>' terminates the class attribute early and the markup that follows is emitted as live HTML.
An attacker who can submit Markdown (through comments, posts, wiki pages, documentation, or any user-generated content) can inject arbitrary HTML and JavaScript that runs in the browser of every user who views the rendered output, enabling session theft, account takeover, and other client-side attacks. No authentication or special privileges are required.
The vulnerable native code originally shipped inside mdex (in native/comrak_nif/src/lumis_adapter.rs) and was later extracted into the separate mdex_native package (native/mdex_native_nif/src/lumis_adapter.rs), where it remains unpatched.
This issue affects mdex from 0.11.3 before 0.12.3, and mdex_native from 0.1.0 before 0.2.3.
Workaround
Do not enable full info-string forwarding (render: [full_info_string: true]) when rendering untrusted Markdown, which prevents the highlight_lines_class attribute from reaching the highlighter. Alternatively, restrict highlight_lines_class values to a safe character set (for example [A-Za-z0-9_- ]) before rendering.
Configuration
The vulnerable code path is only reachable when MDEx is configured with a syntax-highlighting formatter (for example syntax_highlight: [formatter: {:html_inline, ...}] or {:html_linked, ...}) and with full info-string forwarding enabled (render: [full_info_string: true]). Full info-string forwarding is required for comrak to hand the highlight_lines_class attribute to the highlighter, so any application that uses the line-highlighting attributes already has it enabled.
The vulnerability can be exploited over the network without needing physical access. It is easy for an attacker to exploit this vulnerability. An attacker does not need any special privileges or access rights.
Limited exploitation activity has been observed. Close monitoring and planned remediation are recommended.
The exploit probability is very low. The vulnerability is unlikely to be exploited in the next 30 days.
We did not find any exploit available. Neither in GitHub repositories nor in the Exploit-Database.
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