CVE-2026-68749
ReDoS in html_sanitize_ex CSS scrubber allows CPU exhaustion and service DoS.
Is CVE-2026-68749 being exploited?
Not confirmed. CVE-2026-68749 does not appear in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, which records only exploitation that has been observed and reported publicly. That is evidence of absence of a report, not evidence the flaw is unattacked. EPSS currently estimates a 0.45% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days.
How severe is CVE-2026-68749?
CVE-2026-68749 is rated High with a CVSS score of 8.2. Severity describes how bad exploitation would be, not how likely it is: pair it with exploitation evidence before deciding what to patch first.
Is there a patch for CVE-2026-68749?
Yes. A fix has been recorded for CVE-2026-68749. The vendor advisory is the authority on the exact fixed version — apply it from there rather than from a summary.
What does CVE-2026-68749 affect?
CVE-2026-68749 affects html_sanitize_ex < 1.5.3, Elixir/Erlang web apps using html_sanitize_ex. Confirm the exact affected versions against the vendor advisory before deciding you are exposed.
What should I do about CVE-2026-68749?
Upgrade html_sanitize_ex to >=1.5.3; enforce CSS/HTML size limits and rate-limit inputs.
Exploitation status reflects CISA's KEV catalog as we last synced it. Check the catalog directly.
Unauthenticated attacker can send long CSS in HTML to trigger regex backtracking, exhausting BEAM CPU and causing app unresponsiveness/DoS.
Immediate action required
- affected>= 0.3.1 and < 1.4.5
- affected>= 1.5.0-rc.0 and < 1.5.3
- affected>= 21f90012eb21aa36f4e3701b7547e12faf0f3c8b and < *
As published in the CVE Program record. A version outside these ranges is not a statement that it is unaffected — vendors sometimes understate a range, and distribution-backported builds carry upstream numbers that do not reflect what was patched into them.