CVE-2026-115274

Unbounded integer parsing in JSON.decode/1 enables CPU and memory exhaustion denial of service in Elixir

State
Published
Severity
6.9 Medium
Published
Oct 30, 2026
Updated
Oct 30, 2026
Reserved
Oct 23, 2026

Read the record on cve.org

Description

Improper Validation of Specified Quantity in Input vulnerability in the Elixir standard library's JSON module allows an unauthenticated attacker who supplies a JSON document to cause a denial of service through CPU and memory exhaustion.

JSON.decode/1 and JSON.decode!/1 convert each integer literal with erlang:binary_to_integer/1 and do not bound its length. A literal of one million digits decodes successfully but costs 100 to 300 times as much CPU as a string of the same length, so one request body of a few megabytes holds a scheduler for about a second. A literal of more than about 1.29 million digits raises SystemLimitError. Applications generated by phx.new decode request bodies with JSON in Plug.Parsers, before routing and authentication.

This issue affects elixir: from 1.18.0-rc.0 before 1.18.6, from 1.19.0-rc.0 before 1.19.7, and from 1.20.0-rc.0 before 1.20.5.

Scores

CVSSScoreVectorSource
4.06.9 MediumCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:NEEF

Weaknesses

  • CWE-1284 Improper Validation of Specified Quantity in Input

Affected Products

ProductVersions
elixirelixir-lang
  • 1.18.0-rc.0 to before 1.18.6Affected
  • 1.19.0-rc.0 to before 1.19.7Affected
  • 1.20.0-rc.0 to before 1.20.5Affected
elixirelixir-lang
  • 793c1147210388587defb649f25f293ffbfa6b1b and laterAffectedfrom c81f12265919c34a0d5134f1905a4eb4edaea1c2Not affectedfrom 7154e8781da9fd016a973ea01776a011c8b5726aNot affectedfrom cd158efacdc10b30232864251747dff9b8387dfeNot affectedfrom ee5cc23f8928aa5a0f25bb7f28e42ecfc7b7d396Not affected

References

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