All vulnerabilities
CVE-2026-54525GHSA-7v6f-3vq6-r373

vscode-markdown-preview-enhanced: Markdown Preview Enhanced: One Click RCE via Markdown Link Command Injection on Windows

shd101wyy vscode-markdown-preview-enhanced
Open in ThreatlineRecord JSON
CVSS
8.8High
ExploitationNo known exploitationNot in CISA KEV, which does not prove it is unexploitedCISA KEV
Exploit odds (EPSS)0.43%Chance of exploitation activity in the next 30 days, higher than 36% of CVEs. Scored 23 Oct 2026FIRST EPSS
Fixed in0.8.28Fixed versionGitHub
Published14 Oct 2026Updated 15 Oct 2026CVE List

What fixes it

  • 0.8.28shd101wyy/vscode-markdown-preview-enhancedGitHub

A fixed version on one release line is not the upgrade target for every line. Check your exact version and any vendor backports.

Description

Markdown Preview Enhanced is a Markdown preview extension for Visual Studio Code. Prior to 0.8.28, Markdown Preview Enhanced preview-link handling passes a decoded, Markdown-controlled link target to a Windows file-opening helper that invokes child_process.exec with the start command. When a Windows user opens an untrusted Markdown file and clicks a crafted external or unsupported-scheme link, shell metacharacters in the decoded target are interpreted by cmd.exe as command separators, allowing an attacker-selected command to run with the privileges of the current VS Code user. The attack requires one normal preview-link click but does not require malicious workspace configuration, script execution to be enabled, or additional files. This issue is fixed in version 0.8.28.

Text from CVE List

Affected versions 2

  • vscode-markdown-preview-enhancedaffected: < 0.8.28CVE List
  • shd101wyy/vscode-markdown-preview-enhanced<= 0.8.27GitHub

References 7