CVE-2021-41168

Hash-Collision Denial-of-Service Vulnerability in snudown

MEDIUM
6.5
CVSS Score
Published: October 21, 2021 at 08:10 PM UTC
Updated: June 17, 2026 at 04:08 AM UTC
1 product affected across 1 vendorSnudown

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Severity
MEDIUM6.5
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.8%

Description

Snudown is a reddit-specific fork of the Sundown Markdown parser used by GitHub, with Python integration added. In affected versions snudown was found to be vulnerable to denial of service attacks to its reference table implementation. References written in markdown ` [reference_name]: https://www.example.com` are inserted into a hash table which was found to have a weak hash function, meaning that an attacker can reliably generate a large number of collisions for it. This makes the hash table vulnerable to a hash-collision DoS attack, a type of algorithmic complexity attack. Further the hash table allowed for duplicate entries resulting in long retrieval times. Proofs of concept and further discussion of the hash collision issue are discussed on the snudown GHSA(https://github.com/reddit/snudown/security/advisories/GHSA-6gvv-9q92-w5f6). Users are advised to update to version 1.7.0.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

v < 1.7.0
Affected range stops below 1.7.0, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet. What the record does show:

CVSS

6.5MEDIUMGitHub_M
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Complexity
LOW
Privileges
LOW
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
NONE
Integrity
NONE
Availability
HIGH
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusMODIFIED
CWE
CWE-20CWE-327CWE-400CWE-407

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