CVE-2026-42793

May 8, 2026, 4:16 p.m.

8.2
High

Description

Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in absinthe-graphql absinthe allows unauthenticated denial of service via atom table exhaustion when parsing attacker-controlled GraphQL SDL. Multiple Blueprint.Draft.convert/2 implementations in Absinthe's SDL language modules call String.to_atom/1 on attacker-controlled names from parsed GraphQL SDL documents, including directive names, field names, type names, and argument names. Because atoms are never garbage-collected and the BEAM atom table has a fixed limit (default 1,048,576), each unique name permanently consumes one slot. An attacker can exhaust the atom table by submitting SDL documents containing enough unique names, causing the Erlang VM to abort with system_limit and taking down the entire node. Any application that passes attacker-controlled GraphQL SDL through Absinthe's parser is exposed — for example, a schema-upload endpoint, a federation gateway that ingests remote SDL, or any developer tool that runs the parser over user-supplied documents. This issue affects absinthe: from 1.5.0 before 1.10.2.

Product(s) Impacted

Vendor Product Versions
Absinthe
  • Absinthe
  • 1.5.0-1.10.2

Weaknesses

Common security weaknesses mapped to this vulnerability.

CWE-770
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
The product allocates a reusable resource or group of resources on behalf of an actor without imposing any restrictions on the size or number of resources that can be allocated, in violation of the intended security policy for that actor.

*CPE(s)

Affected systems and software identified for this CVE.

Type Vendor Product Version Update Edition Language Software Edition Target Software Target Hardware Other Information
a absinthe absinthe 1.5.0-1.10.2 / / / / / / /

References

https://cna.erlef.org/cves/CVE-2026-42793.html
https://github.com/absinthe-graphql/absinthe/security/advisories/GHSA-qf4g-9fqq-mmm7
https://osv.dev/vulnerability/EEF-CVE-2026-42793

Tags

CWE-770
6b3ad84c-e1a6-4bf7-a703-f496b71e49db
2026-05-08
CVE-2026-42793

CVSS Score

8.2 / 10

CVSS Data - 4.0

  • Attack Vector: NETWORK
  • Attack Complexity: LOW
  • Attack Requirements: PRESENT
  • Privileges Required: NONE
  • User Interaction: NONE
  • Scope:
  • Confidentiality Impact: NONE
  • Integrity Impact: NONE
  • Availability Impact: HIGH
  • Exploit Maturity: NOT_DEFINED

    • 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

    View Vector String

Timeline

Published: May 8, 2026, 4:16 p.m.
Last Modified: May 8, 2026, 4:16 p.m.

Status : Received

CVE has been recently published to the CVE List and has been received by the NVD.

More info

Source

6b3ad84c-e1a6-4bf7-a703-f496b71e49db

*Disclaimer: Some vulnerabilities do not have an associated CPE. To enhance the data, we use AI to infer CPEs based on CVE details. This is an automated process and might not always be accurate.