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.
Published: 2026-05-08
Score: 8.2 High
EPSS: < 1% Very Low
KEV: No
Impact: n/a
Action: n/a
AI Analysis

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Remediation

No vendor fix or workaround currently provided.

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Tracking

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Advisories
Source ID Title
Github GHSA Github GHSA GHSA-qf4g-9fqq-mmm7 Absinthe: Unbounded atom creation from parsed directive name
History

Sat, 09 May 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
References

Fri, 08 May 2026 17:30:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'no', 'Exploitation': 'none', 'Technical Impact': 'partial'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}

Fri, 08 May 2026 16:00:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
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.
Title Atom table exhaustion via attacker-controlled GraphQL SDL names in absinthe
First Time appeared Absinthe-graphql
Absinthe-graphql absinthe
Weaknesses CWE-770
CPEs cpe:2.3:a:absinthe-graphql:absinthe:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Vendors & Products Absinthe-graphql
Absinthe-graphql absinthe
References
Metrics cvssV4_0

{'score': 8.2, 'vector': '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'}

Subscriptions

Absinthe-graphql Absinthe
cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: EEF

Published:

Updated: 2026-05-09T12:41:41.873Z

Reserved: 2026-04-29T18:06:33.251Z

Link: CVE-2026-42793

cve-icon Vulnrichment

Updated: 2026-05-08T16:09:07.595Z

cve-icon NVD

Status : Awaiting Analysis

Published: 2026-05-08T16:16:12.550

Modified: 2026-05-13T15:57:03.607

Link: CVE-2026-42793

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

Updated: 2026-05-08T23:30:15Z

Weaknesses