# CVE-2026-78228: Unbounded handle_error recursion enables denial of service in AshOban triggers

> An attacker can cause a denial of service by triggering an error in AshOban workers, leading to unbounded recursion and resource exhaustion.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.9 (`CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 30 Aug 2026
- **Updated:** 31 Aug 2026
- **Also known as:** EEF-CVE-2026-78228, GHSA-94p7-498r-mrhp

## What is CVE-2026-78228?

CVE-2026-78228 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in ash-project ash_oban, published on 30 Aug 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Uncontrolled Recursion vulnerability in ash-project ash_oban allows a user who can drive a trigger's on_error action to fail on the final attempt to exhaust worker CPU and memory, denying service.

The generated worker's atomic handle_error/4 runs the trigger's on_error action on a job's final attempt inside a rescue that, when the action itself raises, calls handle_error/4 again with the same job. The job's attempt still equals max_attempts, so it re-enters the same clause and re-runs the failing action, with no exit. Any deterministic on_error failure (a data-layer outage, a misconfigured action, or a record the action rejects) loops forever; because the recursive call is not in tail position, each iteration retains a formatted stacktrace and the process heap grows without bound while the failing statement is re-issued against the data layer until the runtime kills the worker.

This issue affects ash_oban: from 0.8.0-rc.1 before 0.8.14.

Weakness: CWE-674 (Uncontrolled Recursion)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-78228?

1 open source package ship an affected version, including ash_oban.


| Package | Ecosystem | Affected | Fixed in |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `ash_oban` | Hex | From 0.8.0-rc.1 | 0.8.14 |

## How do I fix CVE-2026-78228?

Upgrade ash_oban to 0.8.14 or later.

## Is CVE-2026-78228 being exploited?

It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2026-78228 exists.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-78228 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-78228 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in ash-project ash_oban, published on 30 Aug 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2026-78228 exists.

Affected packages and fixed versions:
- ash_oban (Hex): affected from 0.8.0-rc.1; fixed in 0.8.14

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-78228/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-78228/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-78228
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-78228
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-78228

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-78228/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.