CVE-2026-78228

Unbounded handle_error recursion enables denial of service in AshOban triggers

Published Aug 30, 2026 CVSS 4.0 · 5.9 Medium EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed
Description
Uncontrolled Recursion vulnerability in ash-project ash_oban allows a user who can drive a trigger's on_error action to fail on the final attempt to exhaust worker CPU and memory, denying service.

The generated worker's atomic handle_error/4 runs the trigger's on_error action on a job's final attempt inside a rescue that, when the action itself raises, calls handle_error/4 again with the same job. The job's attempt still equals max_attempts, so it re-enters the same clause and re-runs the failing action, with no exit. Any deterministic on_error failure (a data-layer outage, a misconfigured action, or a record the action rejects) loops forever; because the recursive call is not in tail position, each iteration retains a formatted stacktrace and the process heap grows without bound while the failing statement is re-issued against the data layer until the runtime kills the worker.

This issue affects ash_oban: from 0.8.0-rc.1 before 0.8.14.

Remediation

No solution or workaround provided in the CVE record

Tracking

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Advisories

No advisories available
History
Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'no', 'Exploitation': 'poc', 'Technical Impact': 'partial'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description Uncontrolled Recursion vulnerability in ash-project ash_oban allows a user who can drive a trigger's on_error action to fail on the final attempt to exhaust worker CPU and memory, denying service. The generated worker's atomic handle_error/4 runs the trigger's on_error action on a job's final attempt inside a rescue that, when the action itself raises, calls handle_error/4 again with the same job. The job's attempt still equals max_attempts, so it re-enters the same clause and re-runs the failing action, with no exit. Any deterministic on_error failure (a data-layer outage, a misconfigured action, or a record the action rejects) loops forever; because the recursive call is not in tail position, each iteration retains a formatted stacktrace and the process heap grows without bound while the failing statement is re-issued against the data layer until the runtime kills the worker. This issue affects ash_oban: from 0.8.0-rc.1 before 0.8.14.
Title Unbounded handle_error recursion enables denial of service in AshOban triggers
First Time appeared Ash-project
Ash-project ash Oban
Weaknesses CWE-674
CPEs cpe:2.3:a:ash-project:ash_oban:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Vendors & Products Ash-project
Ash-project ash Oban
References
Metrics cvssV4_0

{'score': 5.9, 'vector': 'CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N'}

Weaknesses

Sources

Status
PUBLISHED
Assigner
EEF
Published
Updated
Aug 31, 2026, 2:56 PM
Reserved
Aug 30, 2026, 12:00 AM
Status
Deferred
Published
Aug 30, 2026, 12:17 PM
Modified
Sep 1, 2026, 9:15 PM