Quick answers
- Is CVE-2026-96618 exploited in the wild?
- No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2026-96618 being exploited in the wild.
- How severe is CVE-2026-96618?
- Informational severity, published 12 October 2026.
- Which products and versions are affected?
- Hexpm Hex from 0.11.2 before 2.5.2.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2026-96618?
- Yes: fixed in 2.5.2. Until then: Use trusted package mirrors and avoid pointing HEX_MIRROR_URL or mirror_url to untrusted sources. Restrict network access to only official Hex mirrors. Junglewise finds every place you run it, drafts the upgrade and applies it once you approve.
- How is CVE-2026-96618 attacked?
- It is attacked over the network, in a software library.
- Am I affected by CVE-2026-96618?
- Check whether you run Hexpm Hex at an affected version. Junglewise does that check for you around the clock: connect your code, cloud and domains, and it matches new vulnerabilities like this one against what you actually run and tells you when one reaches you.
How to fix
- Fixed in: 2.5.2
Use trusted package mirrors and avoid pointing HEX_MIRROR_URL or mirror_url to untrusted sources. Restrict network access to only official Hex mirrors.
Technical details
The vulnerability stems from multiple improper handling of compressed and large data: Hex.HTTP.request/5 decompresses gzip responses without size limits before signature verification; package tarballs are consumed without enforced download limits (16 MiB limit only checked after unpacking); and docs tarballs are extracted without applying documented size limits. An untrusted package mirror can exploit this by sending highly compressed payloads that expand to exhaust memory or disk, occurring before checksum or signature validation.
Affected products
- hexpm hex from 0.11.2 before 2.5.2
Timeline
- 2026-10-12: disclosed