8.7

CVE-2026-59251: erlang erlang\/otp

CVSS: 8.7v4.0HighAnalyzed
AliasesUBUNTU-CVE-2026-59251DEBIAN-CVE-2026-59251
Published 27-07-2026Last modified 28-07-2026
Open JSON

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2026-59251 is a high (CVSS 8.7) vulnerability in erlang erlang\/otp. EPSS estimates a 0.32% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 23.2% of scored vulnerabilities.

Overall risk
35/100
0100
Medium · default modelHow is this calculated?
CVSS score
8.7/10
010
High · v4.0 (CVE.org)
EPSS score
0.32%
0%100%
Low · 0.00 pp in 30 days
KEVNot listedIn no KEV catalog
RansomwareNone recordedNo known use recorded
Public exploits0No public exploits recorded

Advisory lineage

Upstream 0 · Downstream 5 · Related 4
OPENSUSE-SU-2026:11559-1OPENSUSE-SU-2026:11560-1RHSA-2026:47009SUSE-SU-2026:3579-1USN-8827-1

Timeline

  1. 27-07-2026
    PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
  2. 28-07-2026
    Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

Allocation of resources without limits in Erlang/OTP public_key certificate path validation allows a remote unauthenticated attacker to cause denial of service by sending a crafted X.509 certificate chain during the TLS handshake. During RFC 5280 policy processing in public_key:pkix_path_validation/3, the certificate policy tree maintained by pubkey_policy_tree grows without an upper bound. When a certificate chain contains M policies per certificate and K certificates, the tree grows on the order of M^K nodes because pubkey_policy_tree:add_leaves/2 and pubkey_policy_tree:add_leaf_siblings/2 extend the tree per policy per certificate. A modest chain with many policies per certificate is enough to pin BEAM schedulers and exhaust the node's memory, taking down the entire VM. The attacker only needs to be able to present a certificate chain to the victim, which is the normal precondition for a TLS handshake, so exploitation succeeds against any incoming or outgoing TLS connection that validates the peer's chain (the default for SSL/TLS clients and mutual-TLS servers). This is the same vulnerability class as OpenSSL's X509_verify_cert policy tree DoS. This vulnerability is associated with program files lib/public_key/src/pubkey_policy_tree.erl and program routines pubkey_policy_tree:add_leaves/2 and pubkey_policy_tree:add_leaf_siblings/2. This issue affects OTP from OTP 26.2 before OTP 29.0.4, OTP 28.5.0.4 and OTP 27.3.4.15, corresponding to public_key from 1.15 before 1.21.4, 1.20.3.4 and 1.17.1.5.

CVSS metrics

6 scores · 4 sources · 2 versions

EPSS trend

Probability

0.32%

Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days

Percentile

23%

Versus all other CVEs

30-day change

0.00 pp

From 0.32% on 18-09-2026

18-09-202618-10-2026
EPSS score
0.32%

Known exploited

Compare KEV catalogs

Not in any of the 3 tracked catalogs.

Public exploits

0 found

No public exploits indexed.

Weaknesses

CWE · root cause

Affected systems

Erlang3 products
  • erlang\/otp≥ 26.2, < 27.3.4.15 | ≥ 28.0, < 28.5.0.4 | ≥ 29.0, < 29.0.4
  • erlang\/public_key≥ 1.15, < 1.17.1.5 | ≥ 1.18, < 1.20.3.4 | ≥ 1.21, < 1.21.4
  • otp≥ 1.15 (No fix recorded) | ≥ 26.2 (No fix recorded) | ≥ 9d1dda7bad5a64b58c10a1554751689e94131a73 (No fix recorded)
Debian1 product
  • erlangAll versions (No fix recorded) | < 1:27.3.4.1+dfsg-1+deb13u3 | < 1:29.0.4+dfsg-1
Ubuntu1 product
  • erlang< 1:27.3.4.6+dfsg-1ubuntu0.1

3 vendors · 5 products

References

11 links
Show all 11 references