Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in ninenines cowlib (cow_http_te module) allows Excessive Allocation.
The chunked transfer-encoding parser in cow_http_te accepts an unbounded number of hex digits in the chunk-size field. Each digit causes a bignum multiplication (Len * 16 + digit), so parsing N hex digits requires O(N²) CPU work and O(N) memory. Additionally, when input is drip-fed, the parser discards the accumulated length on each partial read and restarts from zero on resumption, raising the cost to O(N³). An unauthenticated remote attacker can exploit this by sending an HTTP/1.1 request with Transfer-Encoding: chunked and a very long chunk-size hex string to cause denial of service through CPU exhaustion and memory amplification.
This vulnerability is associated with program file src/cow_http_te.erl and program routines cow_http_te:stream_chunked/2, cow_http_te:chunked_len/4.
This issue affects cowlib: from 0.6.0 before 2.16.1.
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History
Mon, 11 May 2026 19:15:00 +0000
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ssvc
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Mon, 11 May 2026 18:45:00 +0000
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| Description | Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in ninenines cowlib (cow_http_te module) allows Excessive Allocation. The chunked transfer-encoding parser in cow_http_te accepts an unbounded number of hex digits in the chunk-size field. Each digit causes a bignum multiplication (Len * 16 + digit), so parsing N hex digits requires O(N²) CPU work and O(N) memory. Additionally, when input is drip-fed, the parser discards the accumulated length on each partial read and restarts from zero on resumption, raising the cost to O(N³). An unauthenticated remote attacker can exploit this by sending an HTTP/1.1 request with Transfer-Encoding: chunked and a very long chunk-size hex string to cause denial of service through CPU exhaustion and memory amplification. This vulnerability is associated with program file src/cow_http_te.erl and program routines cow_http_te:stream_chunked/2, cow_http_te:chunked_len/4. This issue affects cowlib: from 0.6.0 before 2.16.1. | |
| Title | Unbounded chunk-size hex digits in cowlib cause quadratic CPU and memory DoS | |
| First Time appeared |
Ninenines
Ninenines cowlib |
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| Weaknesses | CWE-400 | |
| CPEs | cpe:2.3:a:ninenines:cowlib:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* | |
| Vendors & Products |
Ninenines
Ninenines cowlib |
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| References |
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| Metrics |
cvssV4_0
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Status: PUBLISHED
Assigner: EEF
Published:
Updated: 2026-05-11T18:56:31.426Z
Reserved: 2026-05-04T18:23:21.380Z
Link: CVE-2026-7790
Updated: 2026-05-11T18:56:27.213Z
Status : Received
Published: 2026-05-11T19:16:29.477
Modified: 2026-05-11T19:16:29.477
Link: CVE-2026-7790
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