Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling Affecting erlang27 package, versions <0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1


Severity

Recommended
0.0
high
0
10

Based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux security rating.

Threat Intelligence

EPSS
0.32% (23rd percentile)

Do your applications use this vulnerable package?

In a few clicks we can analyze your entire application and see what components are vulnerable in your application, and suggest you quick fixes.

Test your applications
  • Snyk IDSNYK-RHEL10-ERLANG27-18412836
  • published30 Jul 2026
  • disclosed27 Jul 2026

Introduced: 27 Jul 2026

CVE-2026-59251  (opens in a new tab)
CWE-770  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

Upgrade RHEL:10 erlang27 to version 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 or higher.
This issue was patched in RHSA-2026:47009.

NVD Description

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream erlang27 package and not the erlang27 package as distributed by RHEL. See How to fix? for RHEL:10 relevant fixed versions and status.

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 Base Scores

version 3.1