CVE-2026-43967

HIGH

Quadratic fragment-name uniqueness check causes denial of service in absinthe

Title source: cna
STIX 2.1

Description

Inefficient Algorithmic Complexity vulnerability in absinthe-graphql absinthe allows unauthenticated denial of service via quadratic fragment-name uniqueness validation. 'Elixir.Absinthe.Phase.Document.Validation.UniqueFragmentNames':run/2 iterates over all fragments and for each one calls duplicate?/2, which evaluates Enum.count(fragments, &(&1.name == name)) — a full linear scan of the fragment list. The result is O(N²) comparisons per document, where N is the number of fragment definitions supplied by the caller. Because input.fragments is built directly from the GraphQL query body, N is fully attacker-controlled. A minimum-size fragment definition is roughly 16 bytes, so a ~1 MB document carries ~60,000 fragments and forces ~3.6 × 10⁹ comparisons inside this single validation phase. No authentication, schema knowledge, or special configuration is required. This issue affects absinthe: from 1.2.0 before 1.10.2.

Scores

CVSS v3 7.5
EPSS 0.0062
EPSS Percentile 45.4%
Attack Vector NETWORK
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CISA SSVC

Vulnrichment
Exploitation none
Automatable yes
Technical Impact partial

Details

CWE
CWE-407
Status published
Products (3)
absinthe-graphql/absinthe 0b46e3bcc06c0d3797bacd64761b908a84646c1d - 223600c520493dcaf95080af552c413099f92c9d
absinthe-graphql/absinthe 1.2.0 - 1.10.2 (2 CPE variants)
Hex/absinthe 1.2.0 - 1.10.2Hex
Published May 08, 2026
Tracked Since May 08, 2026