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  5. CVE-2026-44898

CVE-2026-44898: Mistune TOC Anchor Injection XSS

May 14, 2026 (updated June 8, 2026)

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 closely related to H2 (unescaped id= in heading()): the same heading_id callback pattern that triggers H2 also populates the toc_items list that render_toc_ul() consumes, meaning both vulnerabilities fire simultaneously in a typical documentation setup.

References

  • github.com/advisories/GHSA-6269-cqxg-mhhv
  • github.com/lepture/mistune/commit/04880a0
  • github.com/lepture/mistune/releases/tag/v3.2.1
  • github.com/lepture/mistune/security/advisories/GHSA-6269-cqxg-mhhv
  • nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-44898

Code Behaviors & Features

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Affected versions

All versions starting from 3.2.0 before 3.2.1

Fixed versions

  • 3.2.1

Solution

Upgrade to version 3.2.1 or above.

Impact 6.1 MEDIUM

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N

Learn more about CVSS

Weakness

  • CWE-79: Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')

Source file

pypi/mistune/CVE-2026-44898.yml

Spotted a mistake? Edit the file on GitLab.

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