CVE-2026-8466: Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in ninenines cowboy allows denial of service via unbounded buffer accumulation in m...

Description

Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in ninenines cowboy allows denial of service via unbounded buffer accumulation in multipart header parsing. cowboy_req:read_part/3 in src/cowboy_req.erl accumulates incoming request bytes into a Buffer binary with no upper-bound check. When cow_multipart:parse_headers/2 returns more or {more, Buffer2}, the function reads up to Length bytes (default 64 KB) from the request body and recurses with the enlarged buffer. There is no equivalent of the byte_size(Acc) > Length guard present in the sibling function read_part_body/4. An unauthenticated attacker can send a multipart/form-data request whose body never yields a complete header section — for example, a body that never contains the advertised boundary delimiter, or one whose header lines never contain \r\n\r\n — and force the server process to accumulate memory linearly with the bytes the protocol layer is willing to deliver. A handful of concurrent such uploads is sufficient to exhaust BEAM memory. This issue affects cowboy from 2.0.0 before 2.15.0.

Metrics

CVSS 4.0

8.2/10

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X

EPSS Probability

0.38%

30.0th percentile

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days. Learn more

Weakness Enumeration

CWE-770

References

Timeline

Published: May 13, 2026
Last Modified: Jun 17, 2026
Status: Deferred

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2026-8466?

Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in ninenines cowboy allows denial of service via unbounded buffer accumulation in multipart header parsing. cowboy_req:read_part/3 in src/cowboy_req.erl accumulates incoming request bytes into a Buffer binary with no upper-bound check. When cow_multipart:parse_headers/2 returns more or {more, Buffer2}, the function reads up to Length bytes (default 64 KB) from the request body and recurses with the enlarged buffer. There is no equivalent of the byte_size(Acc) > Length guard present in the sibling function read_part_body/4. An unauthenticated attacker can send a multipart/form-data request whose body never yields a complete header section — for example, a body that never contains the advertised boundary delimiter, or one whose header lines never contain \r\n\r\n — and force the server process to accumulate memory linearly with the bytes the protocol layer is willing to deliver. A handful of concurrent such uploads is sufficient to exhaust BEAM memory. This issue affects cowboy from 2.0.0 before 2.15.0.

How severe is CVE-2026-8466?

CVE-2026-8466 has a CVSS score of 8.2/10 (HIGH severity). The EPSS model estimates a 0.38% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days.

How do I fix CVE-2026-8466?

Check the vendor references and advisories linked above for patched versions and mitigation guidance. You can also run a Strix scan to test if your systems are affected.