Description
Improper Validation of Specified Quantity in Input vulnerability in the Elixir standard library's URI module allows an attacker who supplies a URL to cause a denial of service through CPU exhaustion.
URI.parse/1 converts the port component with String.to_integer/1 in split_authority/1 (lib/elixir/lib/uri.ex) without bounding its length, so a port of up to 1,262,592 decimal digits produces a bignum of that size and a longer one raises SystemLimitError. Rendering the parsed URI back to text (URI.to_string/1, inspect/1, logging, error formatting) converts the bignum with :erlang.integer_to_binary/1, which is quadratic on Erlang/OTP 27, 28 and 29.0: a 400,000-digit port renders in about 2.6 seconds and a 1 MB port in about 18 seconds. Ports above 65535 are also accepted.
This issue affects elixir: from 0.5.0 before 1.18.6, from 1.19.0-rc.0 before 1.19.7, and from 1.20.0-rc.0 before 1.20.5.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected | Fixed |
|---|---|---|---|
| elixir-lang | elixir | 0.5.0 – < 1.18.6, 1.19.0-rc.0 – < 1.19.7, 1.20.0-rc.0 – < 1.20.5 | 1.18.6 |
Fixed in Linux distributions
Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.
Debian
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian 14 | elixir-lang | No fix yet | — |
| Debian 13 | elixir-lang | No fix yet | — |
| Debian 12 | elixir-lang | No fix yet | — |
Ubuntu
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu 18.04 LTS | elixir | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 16.04 LTS | elixir | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 14.04 LTS | elixir | No fix yet | — |
Azure Linux
| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Azure Linux 3 | elixir | No fix yet | — |
References
- Unbounded port parsing in URI.parse/1 enables CPU exhaustion denial of service vendor-advisory related
- EEF CNA record for CVE-2026-109821 related
- OSV record EEF-CVE-2026-109821 related
- Erlang/OTP advisory for the same issue in uri_string related
- Introducing commit 3980182 in elixir-lang/elixir related
- Fix commit 9a39d64 in elixir-lang/elixir patch
- Fix commit b70f33a in elixir-lang/elixir patch
- Fix commit 07d9abc in elixir-lang/elixir patch
- Fix commit d879b39 in elixir-lang/elixir patch