CVE-2026-48853
Remote code execution and denial of service via unsafe Erlang term deserialization in elixir-grpc/grpc
- 9.2CriticalCVSS base score
- 0.78%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 43% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- YesPublic exploitsa reference or SSVC says so
Description
Deserialization of Untrusted Data and Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerabilities in elixir-grpc grpc allow unauthenticated attackers to crash the BEAM node via atom table exhaustion and, when a decoded term flows into a call site that invokes it, achieve remote code execution on the server. 'Elixir.GRPC.Codec.Erlpack':decode/2 (lib/grpc/codec/erlpack.ex) calls :erlang.binary_to_term/1 on the raw gRPC message body without the :safe option, no size bound, and no type guard. Any unauthenticated peer that sends a request with Content-Type: application/grpc+erlpack can send a crafted payload that mints arbitrary new atoms (which are never garbage-collected, exhausting the bounded atom table and crashing the VM) or that encodes a fun term which, if applied anywhere downstream, executes attacker-controlled code inside the server process. This issue affects grpc: from 0.4.0 before 1.0.0.
Public exploit
An exploit or proof of concept is public: anyone can try it against an unpatched system. A reference of the record is tagged as an exploit. CISA's SSVC rates its exploitation: a proof of concept is public.
Show the exploits1
References tagged exploit1 reference
- https://github.com/elixir-grpc/grpc/security/advisories/GHSA-grp7-v8xh-rj7h (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryrelatedexploit
Timeline
ID reserved
By EEF
- 21 days later
· 21 days later
Published
- 3 months later
· 3 months later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| EEFCNA (assigner) | 4.0 | Critical9.2 | CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N |
| NVDNVD · Deferred | 4.0 | Critical9.2 | CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/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 (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.78% · top 43% of all CVEs (12 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: poc · Automatable: yes · Technical impact: total
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Critical 9.2.
Affected products
- affected 0.4.0 – < 1.0.0
- affected 25bcc569fe2cc4478531a6c546c923205fc751c9 – < 272a97a5ea1b46af1819f14a831fcf35fc91f992
Affected packages
From reviewed advisories of the GitHub Advisory Database.
References
References5
- https://github.com/elixir-grpc/grpc/security/advisories/GHSA-grp7-v8xh-rj7h (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryrelatedexploit
- EEF CNA record for CVE-2026-48853 (opens in a new tab)related
- OSV record EEF-CVE-2026-48853 (opens in a new tab)related
- Introducing commit 25bcc56 in elixir-grpc/grpc (opens in a new tab)related
- Fix commit 272a97a in elixir-grpc/grpc (opens in a new tab)patch
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2026-37015 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisory GHSA-grp7-v8xh-rj7h (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2026-48853)Record last updated .