KaTeX up to 0.16.9 Mathematical Expression recursion

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability identified as critical has been detected in KaTeX up to 0.16.9. This affects an unknown function of the component Mathematical Expression Handler. The manipulation leads to recursion. This vulnerability is listed as CVE-2024-28243. The attack may be initiated remotely. There is no available exploit. You should upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in KaTeX up to 0.16.9. It has been rated as critical. This issue affects some unknown functionality of the component Mathematical Expression Handler. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a recursion vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-674. The product does not properly control the amount of recursion that takes place, consuming excessive resources, such as allocated memory or the program stack. Impacted is availability. The summary by CVE is:

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.

It is possible to read the advisory at github.com. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2024-28243 since 03/07/2024. The exploitation is known to be easy. The attack may be initiated remotely. The technical details are unknown and an exploit is not publicly available. The attack technique deployed by this issue is T1499 according to MITRE ATT&CK.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 240201 (Ubuntu 22.04 LTS / 24.04 LTS / 24.10 / 25.04 : KaTeX vulnerabilities (USN-7572-1)), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 0.16.10 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch e88b4c357f978b1bca8edfe3297f0aa309bcbe34 is able to eliminate this problem. The bugfix is ready for download at github.com. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

The vulnerability is also documented in the vulnerability database at Tenable (240201). Be aware that VulDB is the high quality source for vulnerability data.

Productinfo

Name

• KaTeX

Version

• 0.16.0
• 0.16.1
• 0.16.2
• 0.16.3
• 0.16.4
• 0.16.5
• 0.16.6
• 0.16.7
• 0.16.8
• 0.16.9

License

• open-source

Website

• Product: https://github.com/KaTeX/KaTeX/

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Be aware that VulDB is the high quality source for vulnerability data.

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