Cattown Vulnerable to Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity and Uncontrolled Resource Consumption

published 2025-09-08 14 mo ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also GHSA-455v-w7r9-3vv9 , EUVD-2025-27175

cvss: 8.7; version 4.0, CNA
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.3%; EPSS 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 26%
public exploits: 0; none known

Cattown is a JavaScript markdown parser. Versions prior to 1.0.2 used regular expressions with inefficient, potentially exponential worst-case complexity. This could cause excessive CPU usage due to excessive backtracking on crafted inputs. In turn, the excessive CPU usage could lead to resource exhaustion, where processing malicious inputs could cause high CPU or memory usage, potentially leading to denial of service. Version 1.0.2 contains a patch. Additionally, users should review and restrict input sources if untrusted inputs are processed.

Patch / fix

fixed in 1 links 2

npm cattown 1.0.2

CISA SSVC

Exploitation: none
Automatable: yes
Technical impact: partial
Assessed: 13 mo ago (2025-09-09)

Exploit prediction

0.33% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 26% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
CNA	4.0	8.7	CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
CNA	4.0	8.7	CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X

Affected packages

ecosystem	package	affected	fixed in
npm	cattown	<1.0.2	1.0.2

Affected products

IEatUranium238 Cattown

Classification

Weakness

CWE-1333 Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity
CWE-400 Uncontrolled Resource Consumption

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.

Summary