CVE-2026-8466
Unbounded buffer accumulation in multipart header parsing causes denial of service in cowboy
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in ninenines cowboy allows denial of service via unbounded buffer accumulation in multipart header parsing.
cowboy_req:read_part/3 in src/cowboy_req.erl accumulates incoming request bytes into a Buffer binary with no upper-bound check. When cow_multipart:parse_headers/2 returns more or {more, Buffer2}, the function reads up to Length bytes (default 64 KB) from the request body and recurses with the enlarged buffer. There is no equivalent of the byte_size(Acc) > Length guard present in the sibling function read_part_body/4. An unauthenticated attacker can send a multipart/form-data request whose body never yields a complete header section — for example, a body that never contains the advertised boundary delimiter, or one whose header lines never contain \r\n\r\n — and force the server process to accumulate memory linearly with the bytes the protocol layer is willing to deliver. A handful of concurrent such uploads is sufficient to exhaust BEAM memory.
This issue affects cowboy from 2.0.0 before 2.15.0.
Attack profile
How easy it is to exploit
- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges needed
- None
- User interaction
- None
What an attacker can affect
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
Exploit likelihood
What each source reports
CVE List Score used
8.2
Unbounded buffer accumulation in multipart header parsing causes denial of service in cowboy
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in ninenines cowboy allows denial of service via unbounded buffer accumulation in multipart header parsing.
cowboy_req:read_part/3 in src/cowboy_req.erl accumulates incoming request bytes into a Buffer binary with no upper-bound check. When cow_multipart:parse_headers/2 returns more or {more, Buffer2}, the function reads up to Length bytes (default 64 KB) from the request body and recurses with the enlarged buffer. There is no equivalent of the byte_size(Acc) > Length guard present in the sibling function read_part_body/4. An unauthenticated attacker can send a multipart/form-data request whose body never yields a complete header section — for example, a body that never contains the advertised boundary delimiter, or one whose header lines never contain \r\n\r\n — and force the server process to accumulate memory linearly with the bytes the protocol layer is willing to deliver. A handful of concurrent such uploads is sufficient to exhaust BEAM memory.
This issue affects cowboy from 2.0.0 before 2.15.0.
- Record
CVE-2026-8466- CVSS 4.0
- 8.2 High
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N - Weakness
- CWE-770
- Updated
- 2026-11-02
EUVDEUVD-2026-30133
8.2
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in ninenines cowboy allows denial of service via unbounded buffer accumulation in multipart header parsing.
cowboy_req:read_part/3 in src/cowboy_req.erl accumulates incoming request bytes into a Buffer binary with no upper-bound check. When cow_multipart:parse_headers/2 returns more or {more, Buffer2}, the function reads up to Length bytes (default 64 KB) from the request body and recurses with the enlarged buffer. There is no equivalent of the byte_size(Acc) > Length guard present in the sibling function read_part_body/4. An unauthenticated attacker can send a multipart/form-data request whose body never yields a complete header section — for example, a body that never contains the advertised boundary delimiter, or one whose header lines never contain \r\n\r\n — and force the server process to accumulate memory linearly with the bytes the protocol layer is willing to deliver. A handful of concurrent such uploads is sufficient to exhaust BEAM memory.
This issue affects cowboy from 2.0.0 before 2.15.0.
- Record
EUVD-2026-30133- CVSS 4.0
- 8.2 High
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N - Updated
- 2026-11-02
GitHub AdvisoriesGHSA-jfc2-q6qh-g5x8
8.2
Cowboy: Unbounded buffer accumulation in multipart header parsing causes denial of service in cowboy
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in ninenines cowboy allows denial of service via unbounded buffer accumulation in multipart header parsing.
cowboy_req:read_part/3 in src/cowboy_req.erl accumulates incoming request bytes into a Buffer binary with no upper-bound check. When cow_multipart:parse_headers/2 returns more or {more, Buffer2}, the function reads up to Length bytes (default 64 KB) from the request body and recurses with the enlarged buffer. There is no equivalent of the byte_size(Acc) > Length guard present in the sibling function read_part_body/4. An unauthenticated attacker can send a multipart/form-data request whose body never yields a complete header section — for example, a body that never contains the advertised boundary delimiter, or one whose header lines never contain \r\n\r\n — and force the server process to accumulate memory linearly with the bytes the protocol layer is willing to deliver. A handful of concurrent such uploads is sufficient to exhaust BEAM memory.
This issue affects cowboy from 2.0.0 before 2.15.0.
- Record
GHSA-jfc2-q6qh-g5x8- CVSS 4.0
- 8.2 High
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N - Weakness
- CWE-770
- Updated
- 2026-11-02
NVD
8.2
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in ninenines cowboy allows denial of service via unbounded buffer accumulation in multipart header parsing.
cowboy_req:read_part/3 in src/cowboy_req.erl accumulates incoming request bytes into a Buffer binary with no upper-bound check. When cow_multipart:parse_headers/2 returns more or {more, Buffer2}, the function reads up to Length bytes (default 64 KB) from the request body and recurses with the enlarged buffer. There is no equivalent of the byte_size(Acc) > Length guard present in the sibling function read_part_body/4. An unauthenticated attacker can send a multipart/form-data request whose body never yields a complete header section — for example, a body that never contains the advertised boundary delimiter, or one whose header lines never contain \r\n\r\n — and force the server process to accumulate memory linearly with the bytes the protocol layer is willing to deliver. A handful of concurrent such uploads is sufficient to exhaust BEAM memory.
This issue affects cowboy from 2.0.0 before 2.15.0.
- Record
CVE-2026-8466- CVSS 4.0
- 8.2 High
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X - Weakness
- CWE-770
- Updated
- 2026-11-02
OSV
8.2
Unbounded buffer accumulation in multipart header parsing causes denial of service in cowboy
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in ninenines cowboy allows denial of service via unbounded buffer accumulation in multipart header parsing.
cowboy_req:read_part/3 in src/cowboy_req.erl accumulates incoming request bytes into a Buffer binary with no upper-bound check. When cow_multipart:parse_headers/2 returns more or {more, Buffer2}, the function reads up to Length bytes (default 64 KB) from the request body and recurses with the enlarged buffer. There is no equivalent of the byte_size(Acc) > Length guard present in the sibling function read_part_body/4. An unauthenticated attacker can send a multipart/form-data request whose body never yields a complete header section — for example, a body that never contains the advertised boundary delimiter, or one whose header lines never contain \r\n\r\n — and force the server process to accumulate memory linearly with the bytes the protocol layer is willing to deliver. A handful of concurrent such uploads is sufficient to exhaust BEAM memory.
This issue affects cowboy from 2.0.0 before 2.15.0.
- Record
CVE-2026-8466- CVSS 4.0
- 8.2 High
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N - Weakness
- CWE-770
- Updated
- 2026-11-02
OSVDEBIAN-CVE-2026-8466
8.2
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in ninenines cowboy allows denial of service via unbounded buffer accumulation in multipart header parsing. cowboy_req:read_part/3 in src/cowboy_req.erl accumulates incoming request bytes into a Buffer binary with no upper-bound check. When cow_multipart:parse_headers/2 returns more or {more, Buffer2}, the function reads up to Length bytes (default 64 KB) from the request body and recurses with the enlarged buffer. There is no equivalent of the byte_size(Acc) > Length guard present in the sibling function read_part_body/4. An unauthenticated attacker can send a multipart/form-data request whose body never yields a complete header section — for example, a body that never contains the advertised boundary delimiter, or one whose header lines never contain \r\n\r\n — and force the server process to accumulate memory linearly with the bytes the protocol layer is willing to deliver. A handful of concurrent such uploads is sufficient to exhaust BEAM memory. This issue affects cowboy from 2.0.0 before 2.15.0.
- Record
DEBIAN-CVE-2026-8466- CVSS 4.0
- 8.2 High
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X - Updated
- 2026-11-02
Show 4 moreShow less
OSVEEF-CVE-2026-8466
8.2
Unbounded buffer accumulation in multipart header parsing causes denial of service in cowboy
Summary
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in ninenines cowboy allows denial of service via unbounded buffer accumulation in multipart header parsing.
cowboy_req:read_part/3 in src/cowboy_req.erl accumulates incoming request bytes into a Buffer binary with no upper-bound check. When cow_multipart:parse_headers/2 returns more or {more, Buffer2}, the function reads up to Length bytes (default 64 KB) from the request body and recurses with the enlarged buffer. There is no equivalent of the byte_size(Acc) > Length guard present in the sibling function read_part_body/4. An unauthenticated attacker can send a multipart/form-data request whose body never yields a complete header section — for example, a body that never contains the advertised boundary delimiter, or one whose header lines never contain \r\n\r\n — and force the server process to accumulate memory linearly with the bytes the protocol layer is willing to deliver. A handful of concurrent such uploads is sufficient to exhaust BEAM memory.
This issue affects cowboy from 2.0.0 before 2.15.0.
Configurations
The application must expose an HTTP endpoint that calls cowboy_req:read_part/1,2 to process multipart/form-data request bodies. Deployments that do not handle multipart uploads are not affected.
- Record
EEF-CVE-2026-8466- CVSS 4.0
- 8.2 High
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N - Weakness
- CWE-770
- Updated
- 2026-11-02
OSVGHSA-jfc2-q6qh-g5x8
8.2
Cowboy: Unbounded buffer accumulation in multipart header parsing causes denial of service in cowboy
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in ninenines cowboy allows denial of service via unbounded buffer accumulation in multipart header parsing.
cowboy_req:read_part/3 in src/cowboy_req.erl accumulates incoming request bytes into a Buffer binary with no upper-bound check. When cow_multipart:parse_headers/2 returns more or {more, Buffer2}, the function reads up to Length bytes (default 64 KB) from the request body and recurses with the enlarged buffer. There is no equivalent of the byte_size(Acc) > Length guard present in the sibling function read_part_body/4. An unauthenticated attacker can send a multipart/form-data request whose body never yields a complete header section — for example, a body that never contains the advertised boundary delimiter, or one whose header lines never contain \r\n\r\n — and force the server process to accumulate memory linearly with the bytes the protocol layer is willing to deliver. A handful of concurrent such uploads is sufficient to exhaust BEAM memory.
This issue affects cowboy from 2.0.0 before 2.15.0.
- Record
GHSA-jfc2-q6qh-g5x8- CVSS 4.0
- 8.2 High
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N - Weakness
- CWE-770
- Updated
- 2026-11-02
OSVUBUNTU-CVE-2026-8466
8.2
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in ninenines cowboy allows denial of service via unbounded buffer accumulation in multipart header parsing. cowboy_req:read_part/3 in src/cowboy_req.erl accumulates incoming request bytes into a Buffer binary with no upper-bound check. When cow_multipart:parse_headers/2 returns more or {more, Buffer2}, the function reads up to Length bytes (default 64 KB) from the request body and recurses with the enlarged buffer. There is no equivalent of the byte_size(Acc) > Length guard present in the sibling function read_part_body/4. An unauthenticated attacker can send a multipart/form-data request whose body never yields a complete header section — for example, a body that never contains the advertised boundary delimiter, or one whose header lines never contain \r\n\r\n — and force the server process to accumulate memory linearly with the bytes the protocol layer is willing to deliver. A handful of concurrent such uploads is sufficient to exhaust BEAM memory. This issue affects cowboy from 2.0.0 before 2.15.0.
- Record
UBUNTU-CVE-2026-8466- CVSS 4.0
- 8.2 High
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N - Updated
- 2026-11-02
OSVAZL-88266 No score
CVE-2026-8466 affecting package rabbitmq-server for versions less than 3.13.7-5
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in ninenines cowboy allows denial of service via unbounded buffer accumulation in multipart header parsing.
cowboy_req:read_part/3 in src/cowboy_req.erl accumulates incoming request bytes into a Buffer binary with no upper-bound check. When cow_multipart:parse_headers/2 returns more or {more, Buffer2}, the function reads up to Length bytes (default 64 KB) from the request body and recurses with the enlarged buffer. There is no equivalent of the byte_size(Acc) > Length guard present in the sibling function read_part_body/4. An unauthenticated attacker can send a multipart/form-data request whose body never yields a complete header section — for example, a body that never contains the advertised boundary delimiter, or one whose header lines never contain \r\n\r\n — and force the server process to accumulate memory linearly with the bytes the protocol layer is willing to deliver. A handful of concurrent such uploads is sufficient to exhaust BEAM memory.
This issue affects cowboy from 2.0.0 before 2.15.0.
- Record
AZL-88266- Updated
- 2026-11-05
Affected products
Affected packages
| Package | Affected | Fixed |
|---|---|---|
cowboyHex |
2.0.0 up to 2.15.0 | 2.15.0 |
rabbitmq-serverAzure Linux:3 |
before 3.13.7-5 | 3.13.7-5 |
erlang-cowboyDebian:14 |
before 2.16.1+dfsg-1, plus listed versions 0.10.0+dfsg1-10.6.1-10.6.1-20.6.1-30.6.1-4 Show 7 moreShow less0.8.6+dfsg-10.8.6+dfsg1-11.0.0+dfsg1-12.0.0~pre.1+dfsg1-12.0.0~pre.1+dfsg1-22.0.0~pre.1+dfsg1-32.0.0~pre.1+dfsg1-4 |
2.16.1+dfsg-1 |
cowboyHex |
2.0.0 up to 2.15.0, plus listed versions 2.1.02.10.02.11.02.12.02.13.0 Show 16 moreShow less2.14.02.14.12.14.22.2.02.2.12.2.22.3.02.4.02.5.02.6.02.6.12.6.22.6.32.7.02.8.02.9.0 |
2.15.0 |
erlang-cowboyUbuntu:16.04:LTS |
All versions, plus listed versions 2.0.0~pre.1+dfsg1-1 |
None known |
erlang-cowboyUbuntu:18.04:LTS |
All versions, plus listed versions 2.0.0~pre.1+dfsg1-2 |
None known |
erlang-cowboyUbuntu:20.04:LTS |
All versions, plus listed versions 2.0.0~pre.1+dfsg1-4 |
None known |
erlang-cowboyUbuntu:22.04:LTS |
All versions, plus listed versions 2.0.0~pre.1+dfsg1-4 |
None known |
erlang-cowboyUbuntu:24.04:LTS |
All versions, plus listed versions 2.0.0~pre.1+dfsg1-4 |
None known |
erlang-cowboyUbuntu:25.10 |
All versions, plus listed versions 2.0.0~pre.1+dfsg1-4 |
None known |
erlang-cowboyUbuntu:26.10 |
All versions, plus listed versions 2.0.0~pre.1+dfsg1-4build12.18.0+dfsg-1 |
None known |
erlang-cowboyUbuntu:26.04:LTS |
All versions, plus listed versions 2.0.0~pre.1+dfsg1-42.0.0~pre.1+dfsg1-4build1 |
None known |
History
| Recorded | Changed | Sources |
|---|---|---|
| facts | OSV | |
| first indexed | CVE List, EUVD, GitHub Advisories, NVD, OSV |
Dates are when Every CVE recorded each change. Upstream dates may differ.
In short
CVE-2026-8466 is a high vulnerability (CVSS 8.2) in Ninenines Cowboy, published May 13, 2026. No source lists public exploit code. EPSS puts the chance of exploitation in the next 30 days at 0.38%, the 32nd percentile. Fixed in cowboy 2.15.0.