CVE-2026-42792 Affecting erlang package, versions <23.3.4.19-150300.3.39.1


Severity

Recommended
medium

Based on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server security rating.

Threat Intelligence

EPSS
0.44% (37th percentile)

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  • Snyk IDSNYK-SLES157-ERLANG-19165637
  • published22 Aug 2026
  • disclosed18 Aug 2026

Introduced: 18 Aug 2026

NewCVE-2026-42792  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

Upgrade SLES:15.7 erlang to version 23.3.4.19-150300.3.39.1 or higher.

NVD Description

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream erlang package and not the erlang package as distributed by SLES. See How to fix? for SLES:15.7 relevant fixed versions and status.

Improper Handling of Exceptional Conditions vulnerability in Erlang OTP erts (epmd) allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to permanently terminate the Erlang Port Mapper Daemon (epmd) via connection slot exhaustion.

The do_accept function in erts/epmd/src/epmd_srv.c calls epmd_cleanup_exit() when accept(2) returns EMFILE (per-process file descriptor limit reached) or ENFILE (system-wide file descriptor limit reached), rather than treating these as recoverable conditions. An attacker can exhaust epmd's file descriptor slots by holding many TCP connections open while periodically sending a single byte to reset the idle timeout, then causing accept(2) to return EMFILE, which kills the daemon. epmd has no per-source-IP connection cap, making the attack feasible from a single source.

On Debian/Ubuntu default packaging the impact is amplified: the systemd unit inherits a low file descriptor soft limit, and repeated daemon deaths trigger systemd's start-rate-limit, permanently failing both epmd.service and epmd.socket and requiring manual operator intervention to recover.

This issue affects OTP from OTP 17.0 before OTP 29.0.4, OTP 28.5.0.4 and OTP 27.3.4.15.

CVSS Base Scores

version 3.1