High severity · published Oct 22, 2026
CVE-2026-86696
Unbounded atom creation from unsigned LogoutResponse status codes in esaml allows atom table exhaustion
New
8.2
CVSS
0.4%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in esaml in dropbox esaml allows an unauthenticated attacker to exhaust the Erlang VM atom table and crash the node via unsigned LogoutResponse messages.
esaml:status_code_map/1 in src/esaml.erl maps any StatusCode value it does not recognize to an atom with list_to_atom/1 on the last colon-separated segment of the URN. esaml_sp:validate_logout_response/2 verifies a signature only when the message carries one, so an unsigned LogoutResponse posted to the single-logout endpoint reaches esaml:decode_logout_response/1 and mints one permanent atom per distinct status value. Atoms are never reclaimed and the VM caps the atom table at about one million entries, so an attacker who posts that many distinct values aborts the node.
This issue affects esaml: from 0.1.0 onward.
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.4% · higher than 38% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
ES
esaml · arekinath
be692b56245071899757afa7ef47e43593d3de96 · source: vendor
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-86696
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-86696
cna.erlef.org
https://cna.erlef.org/cves/CVE-2026-86696.html
github.com
https://github.com/arekinath/esaml/commit/be692b56245071899757afa7ef47e43593d3de96
github.com
https://github.com/dropbox/esaml/commit/be692b56245071899757afa7ef47e43593d3de96
github.com
https://github.com/handnot2/esaml/commit/be692b56245071899757afa7ef47e43593d3de96
osv.dev
https://osv.dev/vulnerability/EEF-CVE-2026-86696
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