CVE-2026-59250
Published:July 27, 2026
Updated:August 04, 2026
Classic buffer overflow in the Erlang/OTP megaco flex scanner C driver allows a remote unauthenticated attacker to corrupt the driver's memory (and potentially achieve remote code execution or a denial-of-service crash) by sending a single text-encoded H.248/Megaco message containing an oversized property parm name.
When tokenizing a Local/Remote descriptor, mfs_load_property_groups extracts the attacker-controlled property name (bounded only by the message length) and, when no value follows, formats it into a fixed 512-byte error_msg field of the MfsErlDrvData struct using an unchecked sprintf call. Names longer than roughly 452 bytes overflow into the immediately following struct fields (text_buf, text_ptr, term_spec, term_spec_size, term_spec_index), overwriting live pointers and counters with attacker-chosen bytes. Subsequent scanner code writes and frees through the corrupted pointers, producing arbitrary write and arbitrary free primitives inside the BEAM VM process, which can be leveraged for remote code execution. On builds compiled with _FORTIFY_SOURCE the overflow is detected at runtime and terminates the process with SIGABRT, resulting in denial of service.
The overflow occurs in the flex scanner before any grammar or Megaco-level authentication processing, so exploitation requires only network reachability to the megaco transport port on a node configured with {scanner, flex}.
This vulnerability is associated with program files lib/megaco/src/flex/megaco_flex_scanner_drv.flex.src and program routines mfs_load_property_groups.
This issue affects OTP from OTP 17.0 before OTP 29.0.4, OTP 28.5.0.4 and OTP 27.3.4.15, corresponding to megaco from 3.17.1 before 4.9.1, 4.8.3.1 and 4.7.2.2. Versions prior to OTP 17.0 are also affected but are not listed because the OTP version scheme is only defined from OTP 17.0 onwards.
Affected Packages
https://github.com/erlang/otp.git (GITHUB):
Affected version(s) >=OTP-29.0 <OTP-29.0.4Fix Suggestion:
Update to version OTP-29.0.4https://github.com/erlang/otp.git (GITHUB):
Affected version(s) >=OTP-28.0 <OTP-28.5.0.4Fix Suggestion:
Update to version OTP-28.5.0.4https://github.com/erlang/otp.git (GITHUB):
Affected version(s) >=OTP-27.0 <OTP-27.3.4.15Fix Suggestion:
Update to version OTP-27.3.4.15Related Resources (9)
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Contact UsCVSS v4
Base Score:
8.3
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
LOW
Attack Requirements
PRESENT
Privileges Required
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Vulnerable System Confidentiality
NONE
Vulnerable System Integrity
LOW
Vulnerable System Availability
HIGH
Subsequent System Confidentiality
NONE
Subsequent System Integrity
NONE
Subsequent System Availability
NONE
CVSS v3
Base Score:
8.2
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
LOW
Privileges Required
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
NONE
Integrity
LOW
Availability
HIGH
Weakness Type (CWE)
EPSS
Base Score:
0.73