Atom-table exhaustion denial of service in Guardian via unbounded atom creation from binary keys
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Local
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Attack requirements
- Present
- Impact type
- Denial of service
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- None · None · High
- Fix status
- Fixed
Attack profile from CVSS 4.0 · CNA. Fix status from CNA. Impact type from CWE-770.
Summary
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in ueberauth guardian allows denial of service via unbounded atom creation from attacker-influenced binary input. Guardian.Plug.Keys derives connection and session namespace keys by passing arbitrary binaries to String.to_atom/1. base_key/1 in lib/guardian/plug/keys.ex converts any binary into the atom :"guardian_<input>", and the derived helpers claims_key/1, resource_key/1, and token_key/1 create a second atom on top of that. key_from_other/1 likewise converts a regex-captured binary through String.to_atom/1. The public specs advertise String.t() as a valid argument, so passing a string is documented usage, and higher-level entry points such as Guardian.Plug.current_token(conn, key: key) thread the caller-supplied key straight into these functions. 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 routes attacker-influenced data (a tenant identifier, header, or other request input) into a Guardian key 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, taking down every application running on it. This issue affects guardian: from 0.1.0 before 2.4.1.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3
- Exploitation
- Poc
- Automatable
- No
- Technical impact
- Partial
The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.
Affected products
Remediation
- Fix · CNA guardian (ueberauth) Fixed in 2.4.1
Fixed in the same release
Records fixed by the same vendor advisory or release, as the CNA lists them.
- Release ·
ueberauth guardian 2.4.1
4 records Highest priority Priority HIGH 1 HIGH, 3 MEDIUM
Other records, highest priority first
- TI-2026-40233 Guardian.revoke/3 acts on unverified token claims, allowing forged-token session revocationPriority HIGH 69
- TI-2026-40232 guardian atom exhaustion in Guardian.Permissions.encode_permissions!/1Priority MEDIUM 64
- TI-2026-40231 Atom-table exhaustion denial of service in Guardian permissions AtomEncoding via unbounded atom creationPriority MEDIUM 64
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-54894
References
More ueberauth Guardian vulnerabilities
- TI-2026-40233 Guardian.revoke/3 acts on unverified token claims, allowing forged-token session revocation CVSS 4.0HIGH 8.2
- TI-2026-40232 guardian atom exhaustion in Guardian.Permissions.encode_permissions!/1 CVSS 4.0MEDIUM 6.9
- TI-2026-40231 Atom-table exhaustion denial of service in Guardian permissions AtomEncoding via unbounded atom creation CVSS 4.0MEDIUM 6.9
Sources
This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. Sources and licences