Answer in brief
CVE-2026-54451 records a High severity (CVSS 8.2) vulnerability in Elixir protobuf: Unbounded recursion depth in embedded-message decoding. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. The current feed maps protobuf (erlang), elixir-protobuf/protobuf (generic). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.
Analysis pending evidence review
HOL Guard separates source facts from reviewed analysis. See the methodology.
CVSS is 8.2. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. Treat this as a source-backed prioritization signal, not a statement about your environment.
Analysis status
Analysis pending evidence review
Factual feed record only; HOL analysis is not approved for indexing. Read the methodology.
The current feed maps protobuf (erlang), elixir-protobuf/protobuf (generic). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.
| Package | Affected range | Fixed version |
|---|---|---|
| protobuferlang | >=0.8.0,<0.16.1 | 0.16.1 |
| elixir-protobuf/protobufgeneric | >=0.8.0 <0.16.1 | 0.16.1 |
Published upstream
Sep 17, 2026
Evidence: source:cvelist:source_dates:source-dates:recordSource modified
Sep 24, 2026
Evidence: source:cvelist:source_dates:source-dates:recordFirst seen by HOL
Jul 15, 2026
Elixir protobuf is a pure Elixir implementation of Google Protobuf. From 0.8.0 until 0.16.1, services that decode attacker-controlled protobuf bytes with Protobuf.Decoder can be taken offline when the schema contains a self-referential or cyclic message type. In lib/protobuf/decoder.ex, Protobuf.Decoder.value_for_field/3 handles an embedded?: true field by recursively entering the decode / build_message / handle_value / value_for_field call chain without enforcing a nesting-depth limit. Deeply nested embedded fields retain non-tail recursive frames, allowing a comparatively small request to consume substantial CPU and memory, pin a BEAM scheduler, and exhaust the node. This issue is fixed in version 0.16.1.
Quoted source text, attributed separately from HOL analysis.