CVE-2026-53426Atom-table exhaustion denial-of-service via JSON parse_document in MDEx
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It affects leandrocp mdex. 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 leandrocp MDEx allows Excessive Allocation. MDEx.parse_document/2 accepts a {:json, json} source. In lib/mdex.ex, the private json_to_node/1 function passes the attacker-controlled node_type value to Module.concat/1, which calls String.to_atom/1 and interns a brand-new atom for every distinct value. Atoms are never garbage collected on the BEAM, so a crafted JSON document carrying a unique node_type at each (deeply nested) node mints one permanent atom per node. A single document can intern hundreds of thousands of atoms, and a large enough document exhausts the default atom table (around 1,048,576 atoms) and aborts the entire Erlang VM, taking down every process on the node. Any application that passes untrusted input to the {:json, ...} source of MDEx.parse_document is exposed to an unauthenticated denial-of-service. This issue affects mdex from 0.4.3 before 0.13.2.
- CVSS
- 8.2 HIGH (v4.0, CNA)CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:H
- 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
- Deferred
- Record last updated
- Jun 30, 2026
- First seen by InfoSec Signals
- Oct 9, 2026
The CVE record on cve.org NVD's entry
The CVE record is authoritative. Products marked “from the name” were identified from the CNA's free-text names, not a CPE, and are matched less certainly. This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.