{"id":"GHSA-mh25-x5hq-wrqp","title":"league/commonmark: Denial of service via colliding heading slugs","summary":"league/commonmark: Denial of service via colliding heading slugs","severity":"high","cvss":7.5,"cwe":["CWE-407"],"vendor":"league","product":"league/commonmark","ecosystem":"composer","affected":["league/commonmark >= 2.0.0, < 2.9.0"],"patched":["league/commonmark 2.9.0"],"published":"2026-08-06","updated":"2026-08-06","source":"GHSA","sourceUrl":"https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-mh25-x5hq-wrqp","references":[{"url":"https://github.com/thephpleague/commonmark/security/advisories/GHSA-mh25-x5hq-wrqp"},{"url":"https://github.com/thephpleague/commonmark/releases/tag/2.9.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-mh25-x5hq-wrqp"}],"tags":["ghsa","composer"],"ingestedAt":"2026-08-06T21:04:21.976Z","slug":"GHSA-mh25-x5hq-wrqp","body":"## Overview\n\n### Impact\n\n`UniqueSlugNormalizer::normalize()` makes each slug document-unique by searching for an unused numeric suffix, but **restarts that search from `1` on every collision**. The k-th heading that collapses to the same base slug performs k−1 array lookups, so K colliding slugs cost Σ(k−1) = **O(K²)**. An attacker can force every heading onto a single base slug trivially — many empty ATX headings, identical heading text, or punctuation-only headings that normalize to the empty string.\n\nThe path is reached whenever the shared slug normalizer runs over attacker-controlled text. That happens when `HeadingPermalinkExtension` is registered (its `HeadingPermalinkProcessor` normalizes every heading), independently through `FootnoteExtension` (its `AnonymousFootnoteRefParser` normalizes every `^[label]` reference), and on any `TableOfContentsExtension` site (which requires `HeadingPermalinkExtension` to be co-registered). The default `slug_normalizer/unique` setting (`UniqueSlugNormalizerInterface::PER_DOCUMENT`) accumulates collisions across the whole document. No authentication is required — a small document body turns into seconds of CPU and denies service. Availability impact only. **`UniqueSlugNormalizer` was introduced in 2.0.0 (first shipped in 2.0.0-beta1, May 2021); the 1.x heading-permalink slug generator performed no de-duplication and is not affected. All 2.x releases (including 2.8.x) are affected.**\n\n### Workarounds\n\nIntegrators who cannot upgrade immediately can:\n\n- **Set `slug_normalizer/unique` to `false` / `UniqueSlugNormalizerInterface::DISABLED`**, which stops the de-duplication scan entirely — at the cost of losing id uniqueness (colliding headings then share an anchor).\n- **Disable `HeadingPermalinkExtension`** (and `TableOfContentsExtension`, which depends on it), and `FootnoteExtension` where anonymous footnotes reach the same normalizer, for untrusted Markdown.\n- **Cap the accepted document size / heading count upstream** so K cannot reach the quadratic danger zone.\n\nEach of these trades off functionality or correctness; upgrading to the patched release (which removes the quadratic behavior while keeping unique ids and identical output) is the recommended remediation.\n\n## Affected packages\n\n- `league/commonmark >= 2.0.0, < 2.9.0`\n\n## Remediation\n\nUpgrade to a patched release:\n\n- `league/commonmark 2.9.0`","depth":"twilight","depthScore":41,"depthScoreParts":{"impact":41.3,"likelihood":0,"exploitation":0,"ransomware":0},"changes":[]}