ubuntu-cve-2026-75758
Vulnerability from osv_ubuntu
Uncontrolled Recursion vulnerability in the Elixir standard library allows an attacker who controls a list passed to inspect/1, List.to_string/1, or List.to_charlist/1 to exhaust a BEAM node's memory. Inspect.List's charlist branch in lib/elixir/lib/inspect.ex classifies a list as a charlist using List.ascii_printable?/2, which examines only the first :printable_limit (4096 by default) elements, and then calls IO.chardata_to_string/1 on the whole term. A list whose printable prefix exceeds that limit but which contains a later element that is not a code point (an atom, an out-of-range integer, or an improper tail) is therefore mis-classified, and the conversion raises ArgumentError. That conversion runs inside List.to_string/1, whose rescue clause builds its message by interpolating inspect(list), which re-enters the same branch and raises again. The nested inspection is an argument to raise, so the recursion is not in tail position and every level is retained: the process stack grows monotonically while each cycle re-walks the list, until the process is killed by max_heap_size or, by default, the node runs out of memory. List.to_charlist/1 has the same rescue shape. Below the printable limit the inner inspect/1 sees the invalid element within its counter and renders the list in ordinary bracket form, so a single ArgumentError is raised and no recursion occurs. This issue affects elixir: from 1.15.0-rc.0 before 1.18.5, from 1.19.0-rc.0 before 1.19.6, and from 1.20.0-rc.0 before 1.20.4.
{
"affected": [
{
"ecosystem_specific": {
"binaries": [
{
"binary_name": "python-elixir",
"binary_version": "0.7.1-4build0.14.04.1"
}
]
},
"package": {
"ecosystem": "Ubuntu:14.04:LTS",
"name": "elixir",
"purl": "pkg:deb/ubuntu/elixir@0.7.1-4build0.14.04.1?arch=source\u0026distro=trusty"
},
"ranges": [
{
"events": [
{
"introduced": "0"
}
],
"type": "ECOSYSTEM"
}
],
"versions": [
"0.7.1-1",
"0.7.1-2",
"0.7.1-4build0.14.04.1"
]
},
{
"ecosystem_specific": {
"binaries": [
{
"binary_name": "python-elixir",
"binary_version": "0.7.1-4build0.16.04.1"
}
]
},
"package": {
"ecosystem": "Ubuntu:16.04:LTS",
"name": "elixir",
"purl": "pkg:deb/ubuntu/elixir@0.7.1-4build0.16.04.1?arch=source\u0026distro=xenial"
},
"ranges": [
{
"events": [
{
"introduced": "0"
}
],
"type": "ECOSYSTEM"
}
],
"versions": [
"0.7.1-3",
"0.7.1-4build0.16.04.1"
]
},
{
"ecosystem_specific": {
"binaries": [
{
"binary_name": "python-elixir",
"binary_version": "0.7.1-4build1"
}
]
},
"package": {
"ecosystem": "Ubuntu:18.04:LTS",
"name": "elixir",
"purl": "pkg:deb/ubuntu/elixir@0.7.1-4build1?arch=source\u0026distro=bionic"
},
"ranges": [
{
"events": [
{
"introduced": "0"
}
],
"type": "ECOSYSTEM"
}
],
"versions": [
"0.7.1-4build1"
]
}
],
"aliases": [],
"details": "Uncontrolled Recursion vulnerability in the Elixir standard library allows an attacker who controls a list passed to inspect/1, List.to_string/1, or List.to_charlist/1 to exhaust a BEAM node\u0027s memory. Inspect.List\u0027s charlist branch in lib/elixir/lib/inspect.ex classifies a list as a charlist using List.ascii_printable?/2, which examines only the first :printable_limit (4096 by default) elements, and then calls IO.chardata_to_string/1 on the whole term. A list whose printable prefix exceeds that limit but which contains a later element that is not a code point (an atom, an out-of-range integer, or an improper tail) is therefore mis-classified, and the conversion raises ArgumentError. That conversion runs inside List.to_string/1, whose rescue clause builds its message by interpolating inspect(list), which re-enters the same branch and raises again. The nested inspection is an argument to raise, so the recursion is not in tail position and every level is retained: the process stack grows monotonically while each cycle re-walks the list, until the process is killed by max_heap_size or, by default, the node runs out of memory. List.to_charlist/1 has the same rescue shape. Below the printable limit the inner inspect/1 sees the invalid element within its counter and renders the list in ordinary bracket form, so a single ArgumentError is raised and no recursion occurs. This issue affects elixir: from 1.15.0-rc.0 before 1.18.5, from 1.19.0-rc.0 before 1.19.6, and from 1.20.0-rc.0 before 1.20.4.",
"id": "UBUNTU-CVE-2026-75758",
"modified": "2026-09-02T16:27:46Z",
"published": "2026-08-28T16:18:00Z",
"references": [
{
"type": "REPORT",
"url": "https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2026-75758"
},
{
"type": "REPORT",
"url": "https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-75758"
},
{
"type": "REPORT",
"url": "https://cna.erlef.org/cves/CVE-2026-75758.html"
},
{
"type": "REPORT",
"url": "https://github.com/elixir-lang/elixir/commit/0bba5887577b1e328da825bd018815fdc519685a"
},
{
"type": "REPORT",
"url": "https://github.com/elixir-lang/elixir/commit/1eff1acffd49bdcc0d7f57ca74c1603328eed68a"
},
{
"type": "REPORT",
"url": "https://github.com/elixir-lang/elixir/commit/5230d73968f1b4969d2a2646786fa6c71475f5cc"
},
{
"type": "REPORT",
"url": "https://github.com/elixir-lang/elixir/commit/a983c8c043b1fbf1d95df78a29149222dac2988c"
},
{
"type": "REPORT",
"url": "https://github.com/elixir-lang/elixir/security/advisories/GHSA-jf5q-v438-665c"
},
{
"type": "REPORT",
"url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/EEF-CVE-2026-75758"
}
],
"related": [],
"schema_version": "1.7.0",
"severity": [
{
"score": "CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N",
"type": "CVSS_V4"
},
{
"score": "medium",
"type": "Ubuntu"
}
],
"upstream": [
"CVE-2026-75758"
]
}
Sightings
| Author | Source | Type | Date | Other |
|---|
Nomenclature
- Seen: The vulnerability was mentioned, discussed, or observed by the user.
- Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
- Published Proof of Concept: A public proof of concept is available for this vulnerability.
- Exploited: The vulnerability was observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
- Patched: The vulnerability was observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
- Not exploited: The vulnerability was not observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
- Not confirmed: The user expressed doubt about the validity of the vulnerability.
- Not patched: The vulnerability was not observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
The approach is described in our paper Mapping CVEs to MITRE ATT&CK Techniques: A Curated Gold-Set Classifier and the Limits of LLM-Assisted Label Expansion.