this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2026
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They finally did it. Microsoft has successfully over-engineered a text editor into a threat vector.

This CVE is an 8.8 severity RCE in Notepad of all things.

Apparently, the "innovation" of adding markdown support came with the ability of launching unverified protocols that load and execute remote files.

We have reached a point where the simple act of opening a .md file in a native utility can compromise your system.

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[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 10 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

An attacker could trick a user into clicking a malicious link inside a Markdown file opened in Notepad

So you can give someone a Markdown file with a link to an application, and if they click the link the application runs.

Markdown supports links, yeah.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 7 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

But Notepad doesn't, so it shouldn't render .md files, it should just show the markdown code.

They keep adding stuff to notepad that no one was asking for. Like tabs and saving on exit, which breaks the workflow of having notepad be a throwaway scratch pad.

[–] PoopingCough@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago

Funky enough, you used as an example the only new feature I actually like and rely on. I use it for things like PWs for shared service accounts (dont @ me, I know it's bad practice and our org does have a pw manager but these accounts aren't managed by it and I am not in control of them)

Also useful for things that are needed temporarily but I dont know how long that 'temporary' is going to be.