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CVE-2026-42792
Published:July 27, 2026
Updated:August 06, 2026
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.
Affected Packages
https://github.com/erlang/otp.git (GITHUB):
Affected version(s) >=OTP-28.5 <OTP-28.5.0.4
Fix Suggestion:
Update to version OTP-28.5.0.4
https://github.com/erlang/otp.git (GITHUB):
Affected version(s) >=OTP-17.0 <OTP-27.3.4.15
Fix Suggestion:
Update to version OTP-27.3.4.15
https://github.com/erlang/otp.git (GITHUB):
Affected version(s) >=OTP-29.0 <OTP-29.0.4
Fix Suggestion:
Update to version OTP-29.0.4
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CVSS v4
Base Score:
6.3
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
LOW
Attack Requirements
PRESENT
Privileges Required
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Vulnerable System Confidentiality
NONE
Vulnerable System Integrity
NONE
Vulnerable System Availability
LOW
Subsequent System Confidentiality
NONE
Subsequent System Integrity
NONE
Subsequent System Availability
NONE
CVSS v3
Base Score:
5.3
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
LOW
Privileges Required
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
NONE
Integrity
NONE
Availability
LOW
Weakness Type (CWE)
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
Improper Handling of Exceptional Conditions
EPSS
Base Score:
0.39