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MEDIUM Received

CVE-2026-55734

Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in ueberauth guardian (Guardian.Permissions module) allows a denial of service via BEAM atom-table exhaustion. This vulnerability is associated with program file lib/guardian/permissions.ex and program routines 'Elixir.Guardian.Permissions':encode_permissions!/1, 'Elixir.Guardian.Permissions':encode_permissions_into_claims!/2, 'Elixir.Guardian.Permissions':do_encode_permissions!/2. The Guardian.Permissions mixin installs a public encode_permissions!/1 function on every module that does use Guardian.Permissions. For each key of the supplied map, encode_permissions!/1 calls String.to_atom(to_string(k)) before any validation runs. The integer-value clause of do_encode_permissions!/2 then short-circuits straight to encoding without validating the key against the configured permission set, so a key with an integer value is interned as a fresh atom with no exception raised. Atoms are never garbage collected and the BEAM atom table is a fixed-size resource (default roughly 1,048,576 entries), so each unique attacker-chosen key permanently consumes one slot. An attacker who can influence a permission map that reaches encode_permissions!/1 (for example a permissions map read from a request body and passed into token issuance via encode_permissions_into_claims!/2) can mint an unbounded number of atoms and exhaust the atom table, crashing the entire BEAM node and every service running on it. The sibling decode_permissions/1 is not affected because it skips keys absent from the configured permission set. This issue affects guardian: from 2.0.0 before 2.4.1.

Published 01 Aug 2026, 19:16 UTC Last modified 01 Aug 2026, 19:16 UTC
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Attack profile

The conditions required to exploit this vulnerability and its potential impact.

Attack vector Local
Attack complexity Low
Privileges required None
User interaction None
Scope Not assessed
Confidentiality Not assessed
Integrity Not assessed
Availability Not assessed
02

Affected products

Product applicability statements supplied with the NVD record.

NVD has not published structured affected-product data for this record.
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Weakness classification

CWE categories help security teams group the underlying software weakness.

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Source references

External advisories, patches and technical reports attached to this CVE record.