How severe is CVE-2023-28631?

CVE-2023-28631 has a CVSS score of 5.3/10, rated MEDIUM. Review your exposure and patch according to your risk tolerance.

Which packages are affected by CVE-2023-28631?

CVE-2023-28631 affects the following packages: comrak (crates.io). Ecosystems affected: crates.io.

How do I fix CVE-2023-28631?

Update comrak to 0.17.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-28631 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

How do I detect CVE-2023-28631 in my crates.io dependencies?

Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for comrak. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.

How do I mitigate CVE-2023-28631 if there is no patch (or I can't update yet)?

If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.

How does O3 Security protect against CVE-2023-28631?

O3 pinpoints whether CVE-2023-28631 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.

Is CVE-2023-28631 actively exploited in the wild?

No public exploit code has been indexed for CVE-2023-28631 yet. This does not mean the vulnerability cannot be exploited — absence of public exploits does not imply safety. Apply the recommended fix and use O3 Security to monitor your exposure.

What is the EPSS score for CVE-2023-28631?

CVE-2023-28631 has an EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) score of 1.3%, placing it in the 66th percentile of all CVEs. EPSS is maintained by FIRST.org and estimates the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. This score indicates relatively lower exploitation probability, though the CVSS severity should still guide your patching priority.

When was CVE-2023-28631 published, and has it been updated?

CVE-2023-28631 was published on March 28, 2023 and was last updated on April 2, 2026. Advisory data evolves as severity scores, affected ranges, and exploit intelligence are revised — always check the latest version of the advisory before acting.

🦀 crates.io

CVE-2023-28631

MEDIUM

Attacker controlled data in AST nodes is not validated in comrak

Also known asGHSA-5r3x-p7xx-x6q5

Published

Mar 28, 2023

Updated

Apr 2, 2026

Affected

1 pkg

Patched

1 / 1

Exploits

None indexed

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗

1.3%probability of exploitation in next 30 days

Lower Risk66th percentile+0.69%

EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.

Blast Radius

1 pkg affected

🦀comrak

Real-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects crates.io packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.

Description

comrak is a CommonMark + GFM compatible Markdown parser and renderer written in rust. A Comrak AST can be constructed manually by a program instead of parsing a Markdown document with parse_document. This AST can then be converted to HTML via html::format_document_with_plugins. However, the HTML formatting code assumes that the AST is well-formed. For example, many AST notes contain [u8] fields which the formatting code assumes is valid UTF-8 data. Several bugs can be triggered if this is not the case. Version 0.17.0 contains adjustments to the AST, storing strings instead of unvalidated byte arrays. Users are advised to upgrade. Users unable to upgrade may manually validate UTF-8 correctness of all data when assigning to &[u8] and Vec<u8> fields in the AST. This issue is also tracked as GHSL-2023-049.

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed

Ecosystem	Package	Vulnerable range	Fix
🦀crates.io	`comrak`	all versions	0.17.0

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

Detect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for comrak. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update comrak to 0.17.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-28631 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 pinpoints whether CVE-2023-28631 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.

Tailored to CVE-2023-28631. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.

Frequently Asked Questions

comrak is a CommonMark + GFM compatible Markdown parser and renderer written in rust. A Comrak AST can be constructed manually by a program instead of parsing a Markdown document with `parse_document`. This AST can then be converted to HTML via `html::format_document_with_plugins`. However, the HTML formatting code assumes that the AST is well-formed. For example, many AST notes contain `[u8]` fields which the formatting code assumes is valid UTF-8 data. Several bugs can be triggered if this is not the case. Version 0.17.0 contains adjustments to the AST, storing strings instead of unvalidated

O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

Is CVE-2023-28631 in your dependencies?

O3 detects CVE-2023-28631 across crates.io dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.

Scan my dependencies How O3 SCA works