# CVE-2026-75758: elixir-lang: Uncontrolled Recursion vulnerability in the Elixir standard library allows an attacker who controls a list passed to...

CVE-2026-75758 is fixed in 3 products on 1 platform, first by DEBIAN-CVE-2026-75758, released September 17, 2026. It is not reported as exploited. Patch Radar priority: Routine.

- Web page: https://patchblox.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-75758
- Priority: Routine
- CVSS: n/a (moderate)
- EPSS: 0.0018
- CISA KEV: not listed
- Exploited (vendor report): no
- Publicly disclosed: no
- Published: Aug 28, 2026

## Description

Uncontrolled Recursion vulnerability in the Elixir standard library allows an attacker who controls a list passed to inspect/1, List.to_string/1, or List.to_charlist/1 to exhaust a BEAM node's memory.  Inspect.List's charlist branch in lib/elixir/lib/inspect.ex classifies a list as a charlist using List.ascii_printable?/2, which examines only the first :printable_limit (4096 by default) elements, and then calls IO.chardata_to_string/1 on the whole term. A list whose printable prefix exceeds that limit but which contains a later element that is not a code point (an atom, an out-of-range integer, or an improper tail) is therefore mis-classified, and the conversion raises ArgumentError. That conversion runs inside List.to_string/1, whose rescue clause builds its message by interpolating inspect(list), which re-enters the same branch and raises again. The nested inspection is an argument to raise, so the recursion is not in tail position and every level is retained: the process stack grows monotonically while each cycle re-walks the list, until the process is killed by max_heap_size or, by default, the node runs out of memory. List.to_charlist/1 has the same rescue shape.  Below the printable limit the inner inspect/1 sees the invalid element within its counter and renders the list in ordinary bracket form, so a single ArgumentError is raised and no recursion occurs.  This issue affects elixir: from 1.15.0-rc.0 before 1.18.5, from 1.19.0-rc.0 before 1.19.6, and from 1.20.0-rc.0 before 1.20.4.

## Where it's fixed

| Platform | Product | Fixed in | Fix | Released |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Linux | elixir Fedora 43 | 1.19.7-1.fc43 | [FEDORA-2026-F5E380A553](https://patchblox.com/security/data/fix/linux/fedora-2026-f5e380a553.md) | Nov 8, 2026 |
| Linux | elixir-doc Fedora 43 | 1.19.7-1.fc43 | [FEDORA-2026-F5E380A553](https://patchblox.com/security/data/fix/linux/fedora-2026-f5e380a553.md) | Nov 8, 2026 |
| Linux | elixir-lang Debian 14 | 1.20.4+dfsg-1 | [DEBIAN-CVE-2026-75758](https://patchblox.com/security/data/fix/linux/debian-cve-2026-75758.md) | Sep 17, 2026 |

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Data as of 2026-11-08T13:06:02Z UTC. Source: Patchblox Patch Radar (https://patchblox.com/security/patch-radar). Patchblox finds out-of-date software on Windows, macOS and Linux and updates it through release rings: https://patchblox.com/demo

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