Markdown Preview Enhanced: One Click RCE via Markdown Link Command Injection on Windows
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.
CVE-2026-54525
Primary source · Revision 1
Imported from structured advisory data. Source references identify upstream records or fields; verify affected versions and your deployed configuration.
Security context
Source reference: cve:CVE-2026-54525
vscode-markdown-preview-enhanced
Source reference: /containers/cna/affected/0/product
- Affected versions
- Not stated in this record
- Fixed versions
- Not stated in this record
- Prerequisites
- Not stated in this record
Structured affected-version data
Original package identities and version rules from this source.
[
{
"vendor": "shd101wyy",
"product": "vscode-markdown-preview-enhanced",
"versions": [
{
"status": "affected",
"version": "< 0.8.28"
}
]
}
]- Related CVEs
- CVE-2026-54525
Source reference:
/cveMetadata/cveId
Publisher severity
high
Source reference: /containers/cna/metrics
- Event
- #28956 · Revision 1
- Added to Heist Feed
- Publisher date