CVE-2026-59246 PUBLISHED

Zero-length HTTP/2 CONTINUATION frames bypass Mint's header-block byte-size cap and exhaust client memory

Assigner: EEF
Reserved: 04.07.2026 Published: 14.07.2026 Updated: 14.07.2026

Allocation of resources without limits vulnerability in elixir-mint mint allows a remote HTTP/2 server to exhaust memory on the client host and cause a denial of service.

The Mint.HTTP2.handle_continuation/3 function in lib/mint/http2.ex accumulates the header-block fragment carried by each HTTP/2 CONTINUATION frame into a growing conn.headers_being_processed nesting, one level deeper per frame, and only releases it when a frame with the END_HEADERS flag arrives. The only guard on this accumulator is Mint.HTTP2.assert_header_block_within_max_size/2, which sums the byte size of the fragments received so far. Because a CONTINUATION frame is permitted by the protocol to carry a zero-length payload, an unbounded chain of zero-length CONTINUATION frames adds no bytes to the running total, never trips the size cap, and never emits END_HEADERS, yet each frame still nests the accumulator one level deeper.

A malicious HTTP/2 server (reachable directly, via an attacker-controlled redirect, via SSRF, or via a man-in-the-middle) can open a stream by sending a HEADERS frame without END_HEADERS and then stream zero-length CONTINUATION frames indefinitely. Client memory grows one cons cell per frame received; sustained bandwidth from the peer drives the BEAM node running the Mint client to memory exhaustion and eventual out-of-memory termination.

This issue affects mint: from 0.1.0 before 1.9.2.

Metrics

CVSS Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
CVSS Score: 6.3

Product Status

Vendor elixir-mint
Product mint
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 0.1.0 to 1.9.2 (excl.)
Vendor elixir-mint
Product mint
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 596ca4304504be68939c4929e0831557097962b8 to 5779de1666344b32aefc4354184ea07f902f73ce (excl.)

Credits

  • zx (Jace) finder
  • Andrea Leopardi remediation developer
  • Eric Meadows-Jönsson remediation reviewer
  • Jonatan Männchen / EEF analyst

References

Problem Types

  • CWE-770 Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling CWE

Impacts

  • CAPEC-130 Excessive Allocation