{"id":"CVE-2026-55733","aliases":["EEF-CVE-2026-55733","EUVD-2026-51916","GHSA-fjr5-7xrc-hmpj"],"status":"published","title":"Atom-table exhaustion denial of service in Guardian permissions AtomEncoding via unbounded atom creation","description":"Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in ueberauth guardian allows denial of service via unbounded atom creation from attacker-controlled binary input.\n\nGuardian.Permissions.AtomEncoding encodes permission scopes by passing arbitrary binaries to String.to_atom/1. When encode/3 in lib/guardian/permissions/atom_encoding.ex is called with a list, each binary entry is handled by the encode_value/3 binary clause, which calls String.to_atom(value) with no allow-list check. The perm_set argument (the application's small, finite set of legitimate permission names) is discarded, so any external string flows straight into atom creation. This encoder is selected with use Guardian.Permissions, encoding: Guardian.Permissions.AtomEncoding and reached through the imported encode/3 entry point.\n\nString.to_atom/1 creates a brand-new atom for every previously unseen binary, atoms are never garbage collected, and the BEAM atom table is fixed at roughly 1,048,576 entries by default. An application that funnels attacker-influenced permission scopes (from a request body, a JWT claim, or other external input) into encode/3 therefore mints one permanent atom per distinct value. A modest stream of varied, unauthenticated input permanently consumes the atom table and crashes the BEAM node with system_limit, taking down every application running on it.\n\nThe default encoder is Guardian.Permissions.BitwiseEncoding, which is not affected.\n\nThis issue affects guardian: from 2.0.0 before 2.4.1.","severity":{"version":"4.0","score":6.9,"vector":"CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:H","level":"medium","assessor":"cna","from":"cve"},"epss":{"day":"2026-11-09","score":0.00476,"percentile":0.4142,"model":"v2026.06.15"},"facts":{"in_kev":false,"known_exploited":false,"public_exploit":false,"fix_available":true},"cwes":["CWE-770"],"published":"2026-08-01T18:46:12Z","modified":"2026-10-28T02:30:56Z","fixes":[{"ecosystem":"Hex","package":"guardian","fixed_in":["2.4.1"],"sources":["osv"]}],"affected":[{"source":"osv","ecosystem":"Hex","package":"guardian","ranges":[{"type":"SEMVER","events":[{"introduced":"2.0.0"},{"fixed":"2.4.1"}]}],"versions":["2.0.0","2.1.1","2.1.2","2.2.0","2.2.1","2.2.2","2.2.3","2.2.4","2.3.0","2.3.1","2.3.2","2.4.0"]}],"products":[{"vendor":"hashgraph","product":"guardian"},{"vendor":"ueberauth","product":"guardian"}],"references":[{"url":"https://github.com/ueberauth/guardian/security/advisories/GHSA-fjr5-7xrc-hmpj","tags":["vendor-advisory","related","exploit","Exploit","Patch","Vendor Advisory","advisory"]},{"url":"https://cna.erlef.org/cves/CVE-2026-55733.html","tags":["related","Third Party Advisory","web"]},{"url":"https://osv.dev/vulnerability/EEF-CVE-2026-55733","tags":["related","Third Party Advisory","web"]},{"url":"https://github.com/ueberauth/guardian/commit/9cd268557846aa4c3ad53566c08f2c190ee5513f","tags":["patch","Patch","fix"]},{"url":"https://github.com","tags":["web"]},{"url":"https://repo.hex.pm","tags":["web"]},{"url":"https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2026/55xxx/CVE-2026-55733.json","tags":["advisory"]},{"url":"https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-55733","tags":["advisory"]},{"url":"https://github.com/ueberauth/guardian","tags":["package"]},{"url":"https://hex.pm/packages/guardian","tags":["package"]}],"sources":{"cve":[{"id":"CVE-2026-55733","title":"Atom-table exhaustion denial of service in Guardian permissions AtomEncoding via unbounded atom creation","description":"Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in ueberauth guardian allows denial of service via unbounded atom creation from attacker-controlled binary input.\n\nGuardian.Permissions.AtomEncoding encodes permission scopes by passing arbitrary binaries to String.to_atom/1. When encode/3 in lib/guardian/permissions/atom_encoding.ex is called with a list, each binary entry is handled by the encode_value/3 binary clause, which calls String.to_atom(value) with no allow-list check. The perm_set argument (the application's small, finite set of legitimate permission names) is discarded, so any external string flows straight into atom creation. This encoder is selected with use Guardian.Permissions, encoding: Guardian.Permissions.AtomEncoding and reached through the imported encode/3 entry point.\n\nString.to_atom/1 creates a brand-new atom for every previously unseen binary, atoms are never garbage collected, and the BEAM atom table is fixed at roughly 1,048,576 entries by default. An application that funnels attacker-influenced permission scopes (from a request body, a JWT claim, or other external input) into encode/3 therefore mints one permanent atom per distinct value. A modest stream of varied, unauthenticated input permanently consumes the atom table and crashes the BEAM node with system_limit, taking down every application running on it.\n\nThe default encoder is Guardian.Permissions.BitwiseEncoding, which is not affected.\n\nThis issue affects guardian: from 2.0.0 before 2.4.1.","status":"published","published":"2026-08-01T18:46:12.113Z","modified":"2026-08-03T16:50:53.942Z","cvss":[{"version":"4.0","score":6.9,"vector":"CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:H","level":"medium","assessor":"cna"}],"cwes":["CWE-770"],"updated_at":"2026-11-02T14:20:11.925815Z"}],"euvd":[{"id":"EUVD-2026-51916","description":"Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in ueberauth guardian allows denial of service via unbounded atom creation from attacker-controlled binary input.\n\nGuardian.Permissions.AtomEncoding encodes permission scopes by passing arbitrary binaries to String.to_atom/1. When encode/3 in lib/guardian/permissions/atom_encoding.ex is called with a list, each binary entry is handled by the encode_value/3 binary clause, which calls String.to_atom(value) with no allow-list check. The perm_set argument (the application's small, finite set of legitimate permission names) is discarded, so any external string flows straight into atom creation. This encoder is selected with use Guardian.Permissions, encoding: Guardian.Permissions.AtomEncoding and reached through the imported encode/3 entry point.\n\nString.to_atom/1 creates a brand-new atom for every previously unseen binary, atoms are never garbage collected, and the BEAM atom table is fixed at roughly 1,048,576 entries by default. An application that funnels attacker-influenced permission scopes (from a request body, a JWT claim, or other external input) into encode/3 therefore mints one permanent atom per distinct value. A modest stream of varied, unauthenticated input permanently consumes the atom table and crashes the BEAM node with system_limit, taking down every application running on it.\n\nThe default encoder is Guardian.Permissions.BitwiseEncoding, which is not affected.\n\nThis issue affects guardian: from 2.0.0 before 2.4.1.","status":"published","published":"2026-08-01T18:46:12Z","modified":"2026-08-03T16:50:53Z","cvss":[{"version":"4.0","score":6.9,"vector":"CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:H","level":"medium"}],"updated_at":"2026-11-02T18:02:24.366648Z"}],"nvd":[{"id":"CVE-2026-55733","description":"Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in ueberauth guardian allows denial of service via unbounded atom creation from attacker-controlled binary input.\n\nGuardian.Permissions.AtomEncoding encodes permission scopes by passing arbitrary binaries to String.to_atom/1. When encode/3 in lib/guardian/permissions/atom_encoding.ex is called with a list, each binary entry is handled by the encode_value/3 binary clause, which calls String.to_atom(value) with no allow-list check. The perm_set argument (the application's small, finite set of legitimate permission names) is discarded, so any external string flows straight into atom creation. This encoder is selected with use Guardian.Permissions, encoding: Guardian.Permissions.AtomEncoding and reached through the imported encode/3 entry point.\n\nString.to_atom/1 creates a brand-new atom for every previously unseen binary, atoms are never garbage collected, and the BEAM atom table is fixed at roughly 1,048,576 entries by default. An application that funnels attacker-influenced permission scopes (from a request body, a JWT claim, or other external input) into encode/3 therefore mints one permanent atom per distinct value. A modest stream of varied, unauthenticated input permanently consumes the atom table and crashes the BEAM node with system_limit, taking down every application running on it.\n\nThe default encoder is Guardian.Permissions.BitwiseEncoding, which is not affected.\n\nThis issue affects guardian: from 2.0.0 before 2.4.1.","status":"published","published":"2026-08-01T19:16:42.157Z","modified":"2026-10-23T22:10:00.16Z","cvss":[{"version":"4.0","score":6.9,"vector":"CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:H/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","level":"medium","assessor":"secondary"},{"version":"3.1","score":7.5,"vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H","level":"high","assessor":"primary"}],"cwes":["CWE-770"],"updated_at":"2026-11-02T14:12:34.290716Z"}],"osv":[{"id":"CVE-2026-55733","title":"Atom-table exhaustion denial of service in Guardian permissions AtomEncoding via unbounded atom creation","description":"Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in ueberauth guardian allows denial of service via unbounded atom creation from attacker-controlled binary input.\n\nGuardian.Permissions.AtomEncoding encodes permission scopes by passing arbitrary binaries to String.to_atom/1. When encode/3 in lib/guardian/permissions/atom_encoding.ex is called with a list, each binary entry is handled by the encode_value/3 binary clause, which calls String.to_atom(value) with no allow-list check. The perm_set argument (the application's small, finite set of legitimate permission names) is discarded, so any external string flows straight into atom creation. This encoder is selected with use Guardian.Permissions, encoding: Guardian.Permissions.AtomEncoding and reached through the imported encode/3 entry point.\n\nString.to_atom/1 creates a brand-new atom for every previously unseen binary, atoms are never garbage collected, and the BEAM atom table is fixed at roughly 1,048,576 entries by default. An application that funnels attacker-influenced permission scopes (from a request body, a JWT claim, or other external input) into encode/3 therefore mints one permanent atom per distinct value. A modest stream of varied, unauthenticated input permanently consumes the atom table and crashes the BEAM node with system_limit, taking down every application running on it.\n\nThe default encoder is Guardian.Permissions.BitwiseEncoding, which is not affected.\n\nThis issue affects guardian: from 2.0.0 before 2.4.1.","status":"published","published":"2026-08-01T18:46:12.113Z","modified":"2026-10-28T02:30:56.611555153Z","cvss":[{"version":"4.0","score":6.9,"vector":"CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:H","level":"medium"}],"cwes":["CWE-770"],"updated_at":"2026-11-02T15:45:11.22012Z"},{"id":"EEF-CVE-2026-55733","title":"Atom-table exhaustion denial of service in Guardian permissions AtomEncoding via unbounded atom creation","description":"## Summary\n\nAllocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in ueberauth guardian allows denial of service via unbounded atom creation from attacker-controlled binary input.\n\nGuardian.Permissions.AtomEncoding encodes permission scopes by passing arbitrary binaries to String.to\\_atom/1. When encode/3 in lib/guardian/permissions/atom\\_encoding.ex is called with a list, each binary entry is handled by the encode\\_value/3 binary clause, which calls String.to\\_atom(value) with no allow-list check. The perm\\_set argument (the application's small, finite set of legitimate permission names) is discarded, so any external string flows straight into atom creation. This encoder is selected with use Guardian.Permissions, encoding: Guardian.Permissions.AtomEncoding and reached through the imported encode/3 entry point.\n\nString.to\\_atom/1 creates a brand-new atom for every previously unseen binary, atoms are never garbage collected, and the BEAM atom table is fixed at roughly 1,048,576 entries by default. An application that funnels attacker-influenced permission scopes (from a request body, a JWT claim, or other external input) into encode/3 therefore mints one permanent atom per distinct value. A modest stream of varied, unauthenticated input permanently consumes the atom table and crashes the BEAM node with system\\_limit, taking down every application running on it.\n\nThe default encoder is Guardian.Permissions.BitwiseEncoding, which is not affected.\n\nThis issue affects guardian: from 2.0.0 before 2.4.1.\n\n## Workarounds\n\nSwitch the permission encoder to the default Guardian.Permissions.BitwiseEncoding or to Guardian.Permissions.TextEncoding, neither of which creates atoms. Alternatively, validate every permission value against the configured perm\\_set allowlist (rejecting unknown values) before passing it to encode/3.\n\n## Configurations\n\nOnly applications that opt into the non-default Guardian.Permissions.AtomEncoding encoder (via use Guardian.Permissions, encoding: Guardian.Permissions.AtomEncoding) and pass attacker-influenced permission scopes into its encode/3 entry point are exploitable. The default Guardian.Permissions.BitwiseEncoding encoder and the Guardian.Permissions.TextEncoding encoder do not create atoms and are not affected.","status":"published","published":"2026-08-01T18:46:12.113Z","modified":"2026-09-08T03:45:05.053371109Z","cvss":[{"version":"4.0","score":6.9,"vector":"CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:H","level":"medium"}],"cwes":["CWE-770"],"updated_at":"2026-11-02T15:46:33.520522Z"}]}}