Status: UPDATED | Advisory ID: CVE-2026-55733
| CVE | CVE-2026-55733 |
| CVSS Score / Version | 7.5 (High) / CVSS v3.1 |
| Updated | 2026-08-06 |
| CVSS Vector | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |
| CVSS Prose | attack vector is network; attack complexity is low; privileges required is none; user interaction is none; scope is unchanged; confidentiality impact is none; integrity impact is none; availability impact is high. |
| Affected products | ueberauth guardian |
| Classified as | CWE-770 (Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling) |
| Vendor | Product | Affected Versions | Patch Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| ueberauth | guardian |
| Subsystems | General OT |
| Sectors | Multiple |
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in ueberauth guardian allows denial of service via unbounded atom creation from attacker-controlled binary input.
Guardian.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.
String.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.
The default encoder is Guardian.Permissions.BitwiseEncoding, which is not affected.
This issue affects guardian: from 2.0.0 before 2.4.1. (NVD)
Monitor ueberauth's web page for any future patch releases. See vendor advisory link below.