CVE-2026-77831: Inefficient Algorithmic Complexity vulnerability in ash-project ash_paper_trail allows a user who can submit a large…
CVE-2026-77831 analysis covering impact, affected products, versions, remediation, and cross-checked defender guidance.
CVE-2026-77831 is a vulnerability published by NVD on 8/30/2026.
What happened
Inefficient Algorithmic Complexity vulnerability in ash-project ash_paper_trail allows a user who can submit a large array attribute to a paper-trailed create or update action to cause a denial of service through excessive CPU and memory use.
With full-diff change tracking, AshPaperTrail.ChangeBuilders.FullDiff.ListChange pairs each prior array element against the new list by rebuilding the remaining-elements accumulator with acc ++ [tuple] on every step, copying the growing list each time, so the pairing scales cubically in the array length. Nothing bounds the length and the value comes straight from action input, so one request carrying a large accepted {:array, _} attribute forces tens of seconds of CPU and multi-gigabyte allocations.
This issue affects ash_paper_trail: from 0.1.1 before 0.7.0.
Affected products and versions
- NVD has not published a normalized affected-product configuration yet.
Severity and weakness
CVSS: LOW 2.1. Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X.
Weaknesses: CWE-407.
Known exploitation
No CISA KEV entry is currently attached to the NVD record.
What defenders should do
- Identify whether the affected product and version range exists in production.
- Review vendor advisories and release notes before change windows.
- Patch, upgrade, disable the vulnerable component, or apply vendor mitigations.
- Verify the running version after deployment, not only the package inventory.
Official and supporting references
- No vendor advisory tagged by NVD at draft time.