CVE-2026-32688Atom table exhaustion via HTTP/2 :scheme pseudo-header in plug_cowboy
Updated under an hour ago ()
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It affects elixir-plug plug_cowboy and 1 other product. Add what you run to find out whether that includes you.
No exploitation reported and no EPSS estimate yet.
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Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in elixir-plug plug_cowboy allows unauthenticated remote denial of service via atom table exhaustion. Plug.Cowboy.Conn.conn/1 in lib/plug/cowboy/conn.ex calls String.to_atom/1 on the value returned by :cowboy_req.scheme/1. For HTTP/2 connections, cowlib passes the client-supplied :scheme pseudo-header value through verbatim without validation. Each unique value permanently allocates a new entry in the BEAM atom table. Since atoms are never garbage-collected and the atom table has a fixed limit (default 1,048,576), an unauthenticated attacker can exhaust the table by sending HTTP/2 requests with unique :scheme values, causing the Erlang VM to abort with system_limit and taking down the entire node. This vulnerability does not affect HTTP/1.1, where cowboy derives the scheme from the listener type rather than from a client-supplied header. This issue affects plug_cowboy: from 2.0.0 before 2.8.1.
- CVSS
- 8.7 HIGH (v4.0, CNA)CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
- Weakness (CWE)
- CWE-770
- Known exploited
- Not in CISA's KEV catalog
- EPSS (exploitation in the next 30 days)
- Not loaded for this CVE
- Assigned by
- EEF
- NVD analysis
- Analyzed
- Record last updated
- Apr 29, 2026
- First seen by InfoSec Signals
- Oct 9, 2026
The CVE record on cve.org NVD's entry
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