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Fencer Vulns
medium 6.5

CVE-2024-28243 json

KaTeX's maxExpand bypassed by \edef

published 2024-03-25 2 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2024-0839 , GHSA-64fm-8hw2-v72w

cvss
6.5
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
1.4%
EPSS 1.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 72%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

KaTeX is a JavaScript library for TeX math rendering on the web. KaTeX users who render untrusted mathematical expressions could encounter malicious input using `\edef` that causes a near-infinite loop, despite setting `maxExpand` to avoid such loops. This can be used as an availability attack, where e.g. a client rendering another user's KaTeX input will be unable to use the site due to memory overflow, tying up the main thread, or stack overflow. Upgrade to KaTeX v0.16.10 to remove this vulnerability.

Patch / fix

  • npm katex 0.16.10
  • katex katex 0.16.10
  • node-katex Debian 14, Debian 13 0.16.10+~cs6.1.0-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2024-28243

  • node-katex Ubuntu Pro 22.04 LTS 0.13.11+~cs6.0.0-2ubuntu0.1~esm1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2024-28243

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2024-28243 updated cvss 6.5

katex: malicious input using `\edef` that causes a near-infinite loop

  • Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
2 y ago

Exploit prediction

1.41% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 72% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 6.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
GitHub 3.1 6.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
npm katex
>=0.12.0, <0.16.10
0.16.10

Affected products

  • KaTeX KaTeX

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-674 Uncontrolled Recursion
  • CWE-606 Unchecked Input for Loop Condition

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

CPEs and fixed versions use Anchore's correction of NVD's data: Added CPE configurations because not yet analyzed by NVD.