CVE-2026-68749
HIGHDescription
Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity vulnerability in the CSS scrubber in rrrene html_sanitize_ex allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to exhaust server CPU via a long CSS declaration in sanitized HTML. The declaration regex in HtmlSanitizeEx.Scrubber.CSS.scrub/1 matches the property name with an unbounded greedy [-\w]+ followed by a mandatory :, so a long run of word characters not followed by a colon makes the engine give back one character at a time and retry the colon at every start offset. The work is quadratic in the length of the run, and no length cap is applied to the CSS handed to the scrubber. An 80 KB <style> body costs roughly 2.4 seconds of scheduler time, so a few concurrent requests saturate the BEAM scheduler pool and make the application unresponsive. The impact is CPU exhaustion only. Nothing is read, modified or disclosed. This issue affects html_sanitize_ex: from 0.3.1 before 1.4.5 and from 1.5.0-rc.0 before 1.5.3.
How to fix
TridentStack Control can deploy fixes like this automatically across your Windows, macOS, and Linux fleet. See how it works
Remediation is compiled from vendor and distribution security advisories. Always confirm against the linked source for your exact version and platform.
CVSS v3 Vector
Exploitability
Impact
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Exploit Intelligence
Low risk: more likely to be exploited than 37% of all known CVEs.
References
Related Vulnerabilities
Other CWE-1333 vulnerabilities, ordered by exploit likelihood. View all
| CVE | Severity | CVSS | EPSS | Exploited | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVE-2023-3364 | High | 7.5 | 44% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2024-8124 | High | 7.5 | 40% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2024-25126 | Medium | 5.3 | 35% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2024-2651 | Medium | 6.5 | 33% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2021-32837 | High | 7.5 | 29% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2024-2829 | High | 7.5 | 26% | - | Fix |
Common questions
How do I fix CVE-2026-68749?
Upgrade htmlsanitizeex to 1.5.3 or later.
Is CVE-2026-68749 being actively exploited?
Not that we know of. CVE-2026-68749 is not in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. Its EPSS score of 0.44% is the estimated probability that it will be exploited in the next 30 days. That is higher than 37% of all scored CVEs.
How severe is CVE-2026-68749?
CVE-2026-68749 has a CVSS v3 base score of 7.5, rated high. CVSS rates the technical impact if the vulnerability is exploited, not how likely that is, so weigh it alongside the exploit-prediction score when you decide what to patch first.
What does CVE-2026-68749 affect?
Published advisories record a fix for htmlsanitizeex (NVD). Only products with a sourced advisory are listed, so treat this as what we can cite rather than a complete inventory.
Embed a live status badge for CVE-2026-68749
Markdown
[](https://tridentstack.com/cve/CVE-2026-68749)HTML
<a href="https://tridentstack.com/cve/CVE-2026-68749"><img src="https://tridentstack.com/cve/badge/CVE-2026-68749.svg" alt="CVE-2026-68749"></a>Find and fix vulnerabilities across your fleet
TridentStack Control continuously scans your Windows, macOS, and Linux fleet for known vulnerabilities, prioritizes them by severity and active exploitation, and patches them automatically.
This product uses NVD data but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. EPSS scores courtesy of FIRST.org (https://www.first.org/epss). Source: CISA KEV Catalog. Data as of 2026-08-19.