Description
Plug.Parsers.MULTIPART, the multipart request-body parser used to handle file uploads and multipart forms, does not enforce its :length budget against all consumed resources, allowing an unauthenticated remote attacker to cause denial of service. The parser charges the :length limit only for part body bytes; part header bytes are never counted, and a part with an empty body costs zero. Because every part whose Content-Disposition carries a non-empty filename creates a fresh temporary file (via Plug.Upload) and retains a Plug.Upload struct for the duration of the request, an attacker can send a single request composed of many empty-body file parts. Such a request stays well under the configured :length limit (8,000,000 bytes by default) while creating one temporary file per part, leading to inode and disk exhaustion and unbounded memory growth. Any application using Plug.Parsers with the :multipart parser is affected, and no authentication is required, only reachability of a multipart endpoint over HTTP. This vulnerability is associated with program files lib/plug/parsers/multipart.ex and program routines Plug.Parsers.MULTIPART.parse_multipart/2, Plug.Parsers.MULTIPART.parse_multipart_headers/5, Plug.Parsers.MULTIPART.parse_multipart_body/4, and Plug.Parsers.MULTIPART.parse_multipart_file/4. This issue affects plug: from 1.4.0 before 1.16.6, from 1.17.0 before 1.17.4, from 1.18.0 before 1.18.5, from 1.19.0 before 1.19.5, and from 1.20.0 before 1.20.3.
Problem types
CWE-770 Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
Product status
1.4.0 (semver) before 1.16.6
1.17.0 (semver) before 1.17.4
1.18.0 (semver) before 1.18.5
1.19.0 (semver) before 1.19.5
1.20.0 (semver) before 1.20.3
c52b2f32c90bccd718202bafccb5f95594e30183 (git) before *
Credits
Peter Ullrich
Jonatan Männchen
José Valim
References
github.com/...g/plug/security/advisories/GHSA-95qv-c9g9-rm63
cna.erlef.org/cves/CVE-2026-56814.html
osv.dev/vulnerability/EEF-CVE-2026-56814
github.com/...ommit/981597d3a4271ede64373c7a731702a42c500dd6
github.com/...ommit/56edca2ce35fe5589cd581644d8a4493fa5f484e
github.com/...ommit/0ee8afcc61466dc5f7a8f048d0632c899165b81f
github.com/...ommit/cae36053350e5215a4e0ca33cd130af9c5fc6364
github.com/...ommit/f7effaed811c00b5f5bf817936bfd9c5df27b7dc
github.com/...ommit/df97d3f17f808a9916a7700a701fb85314559d56