Severity by source
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
Remote unauthenticated request to the pre-auth sign-in path (AV:N/PR:N/UI:N/AC:L) causes availability-only resource exhaustion (A:H), with no confidentiality or integrity impact and no scope change.
Primary rating from Vendor (EEF).
CVSS VectorVendor: EEF
Lifecycle Timeline
3DescriptionCVE.org
Inefficient Algorithmic Complexity vulnerability in team-alembic AshAuthentication allows an unauthenticated attacker to exhaust CPU and memory via an oversized base62 segment in a submitted API key.
AshAuthentication.Base.decode62/1 in lib/ash_authentication/base.ex splits its argument into one binary per character and folds it with charval62/2, which recomputes Integer.pow(62, index) at every position instead of accumulating by Horner's method, so cost grows roughly cubically in the input length. bindecode62/1 in the same module is quadratic through Integer.undigits/2 and Integer.digits/2. Neither function caps byte_size/1, and AshAuthentication.Strategy.ApiKey.SignInPreparation passes the underscore-separated segments of the submitted key straight into both, before any key lookup and without prior authentication. The surrounding rescue clauses catch exceptions, not CPU or memory exhaustion.
This issue affects ash_authentication: from 4.8.0 before 4.15.0 and from 5.0.0-rc.0 before 5.0.0-rc.14.
AnalysisAI
Denial of service in the AshAuthentication API-key sign-in strategy lets an unauthenticated, remote attacker exhaust server CPU and memory by submitting an API key containing an oversized base62 segment. Affected are ash_authentication releases from 4.8.0 before 4.15.0 and from 5.0.0-rc.0 before 5.0.0-rc.14 that enable the ApiKey strategy; the malicious input is decoded before any key lookup, so no credentials, valid key, or user interaction is required (CVSS 4.0 base 8.2; assessed CVSS 3.1 AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/A:H). …
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Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata
Vulnerability AssessmentAI
| Exploitation | The target application must use AshAuthentication with the ApiKey strategy enabled (AshAuthentication.Strategy.ApiKey.SignInPreparation exposed via a sign-in action), and run an affected version (4.8.0 up to but not including 4.15.0, or 5.0.0-rc.0 up to but not including 5.0.0-rc.14). … Additional conditions and limiting factors are described in the full assessment. |
| Risk Assessment | This is a genuine, network-reachable denial-of-service (CWE-407, algorithmic complexity) that a defender should prioritize if they run AshAuthentication's ApiKey strategy. … Full risk analysis with EPSS, KEV, and SSVC signal comparison available after sign-in. |
| Exploit Scenario | Full exploit scenario with step-by-step reproduction available after sign-in. |
| Remediation | Vendor-released patch: upgrade ash_authentication to 4.15.0 or later on the 4.x line, or to 5.0.0-rc.14 or later on the 5.0 release-candidate line, following the advisory at https://github.com/team-alembic/ash_authentication/security/advisories/GHSA-q876-xr24-2mcx; the fixes are contained in the referenced upstream commits f3a53f480088419788d5c3934af3131fa9066773, d5a5d4cb5cc17fbd6e2a120a6111b47accad4b8e, and dfb19c897853686ab481c5e773f7a1a0c74dea04, so a deployment pinned to a git dependency can also pull one of those revisions directly. … Detailed patch versions, workarounds, and compensating controls in full report. |
Recommended ActionAI
Within 24 hours, inventory every deployment of the ash_authentication package and determine which ones enable the ApiKey sign-in strategy; for any that are internet-facing, apply edge rate limiting on the sign-in endpoint or temporarily disable the ApiKey strategy until an upgrade window is available. …
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External POC / Exploit Code
Leaving vuln.today
EUVD-2026-81478