ratex-parser panics on `\verb` with a multibyte delimiter (UTF-8 byte-boundary slice)
CVE-2026-53530

8.7HIGH

Key Information:

Vendor

Erweixin

Status
Vendor
CVE Published:
21 August 2026

What is CVE-2026-53530?

RaTeX is a KaTeX-compatible math rendering engine written in Rust. Prior to version 0.1.11, the public parser entrypoint ratex_parser::parse(&str) panics on the 9-byte input \verbéxé (i.e. \verb followed by the non-ASCII delimiter é). When handling a \verb command, the parser slices the verbatim argument with byte indices (arg[1..arg.len() - 1]); if the delimiter character is multibyte UTF-8, index 1 lands inside that character and Rust panics with “byte index 1 is not a char boundary”. Because RaTeX’s release profile sets panic = "abort" (Cargo.toml:48), the panic aborts the entire process — not just the current request/thread — making this a hard denial of service for any service that renders untrusted LaTeX. Version 0.1.11 fixes the issue.

Affected Version(s)

RaTeX < 0.1.11

References

CVSS V4

Score:
8.7
Severity:
HIGH
Confidentiality:
None
Integrity:
None
Availability:
High
Attack Vector:
Network
Attack Complexity:
Low
Attack Required:
None
Privileges Required:
Undefined
User Interaction:
None

Timeline

  • Vulnerability published

  • Vulnerability Reserved

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