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CVE-2026-75758
Published:August 28, 2026
Updated:September 24, 2026
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 Packages
https://github.com/elixir-lang/elixir.git (GITHUB):
Affected version(s) >=v1.19.0 <v1.19.6
Fix Suggestion:
Update to version v1.19.6
https://github.com/elixir-lang/elixir.git (GITHUB):
Affected version(s) >=v1.20.0 <v1.20.4
Fix Suggestion:
Update to version v1.20.4
https://github.com/elixir-lang/elixir.git (GITHUB):
Affected version(s) >=v1.15.0 <v1.18.5
Fix Suggestion:
Update to version v1.18.5
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CVSS v4
Base Score:
5.9
Attack Vector
LOCAL
Attack Complexity
LOW
Attack Requirements
PRESENT
Privileges Required
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Vulnerable System Confidentiality
NONE
Vulnerable System Integrity
NONE
Vulnerable System Availability
HIGH
Subsequent System Confidentiality
NONE
Subsequent System Integrity
NONE
Subsequent System Availability
NONE
CVSS v3
Base Score:
6.2
Attack Vector
LOCAL
Attack Complexity
LOW
Privileges Required
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
NONE
Integrity
NONE
Availability
HIGH
Weakness Type (CWE)
Uncontrolled Recursion
EPSS
Base Score:
0.13