CVE-2026-54890
published 2026-07-27CVE-2026-54890: Integer Underflow (Wrap or Wraparound) vulnerability in erlang otp erlang/otp (erts modules), erlang otp erts (erts modules) allows Forced Integer Overflow…
PriorityP343high7.5CVSS 3.1
AVNACLPRNUINSUCNINAH
EPSS
0.42%
35.3th percentile
Integer Underflow (Wrap or Wraparound) vulnerability in erlang otp erlang/otp (erts modules), erlang otp erts (erts modules) allows Forced Integer Overflow, Excessive Allocation. This vulnerability is associated with program files erts/emulator/beam/external.c, emulator/beam/external.c.
The BIT_BINARY_EXT tag (77) handler in the External Term Format (ETF) decoder accepts an encoding with both length and trailing-bits fields set to zero. The subsequent computation of the bitstring size underflows an unsigned integer, producing a value of roughly 2^64 that is then passed as a memory allocation size. The allocator aborts the entire node with a message such as "Cannot allocate 2305843009213693951 bytes of memory (of type binary)".
The crash is a VM-level abort, not an Erlang-level exception. It cannot be intercepted by supervision trees, by try/catch, or by passing the [safe] option to binary_to_term/2 (which only restricts atom creation and does not perform structural validation of binary encodings).
Any application that decodes ETF from untrusted sources via binary_to_term/1,2 or enif_binary_to_term() is exposed. The Erlang distribution protocol also decodes incoming terms through the same code path, but distribution is expected to run on trusted networks per the OTP Secure Coding Guidelines (DSG-011).
This issue affects OTP from OTP 27.0 before OTP 29.0.4, OTP 28.5.0.4 and OTP 27.3.4.15, corresponding to erts from 15.0 before 17.0.4, 16.4.0.4 and 15.2.7.11.
Affected
10 ranges
| Vendor | Product | Version range | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|---|
| erlang | erlang_otp | >= 27.0 < 27.3.4.15 | 27.3.4.15 |
| erlang | erlang_otp | >= 28.0 < 28.5.0.4 | 28.5.0.4 |
| erlang | erlang_otp | >= 29.0 < 29.0.4 | 29.0.4 |
| erlang | erts | >= 15.0 < 15.2.7.11 | 15.2.7.11 |
| erlang | erts | >= 16.0 < 16.4.0.4 | 16.4.0.4 |
| erlang | erts | >= 17.0 < 17.0.4 | 17.0.4 |
| erlang | otp | >= 15.0 < * | * |
| erlang | otp | >= 24ef4cbaeda9b9c26682cba75f2f15b0c58722aa < dc1bf9344c0ce62717cf60866590cea0242780fd | dc1bf9344c0ce62717cf60866590cea0242780fd |
| erlang | otp | >= 27.0 < * | * |
| ubuntu | erlang | — | — |
CVSS provenance
nvdv3.17.5HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
nvdv4.08.2HIGHCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
vendor_redhat8.2HIGH
vendor_ubuntu7.5HIGH
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Ubuntu
Erlang vulnerabilities
vendor_ubuntu·2026-09-28·CVSS 7.5
CVE-2026-23941 [HIGH] Erlang vulnerabilities
Title: Erlang vulnerabilities
Summary: Several security issues were fixed in Erlang.
It was discovered that the Erlang Port Mapper Daemon did not properly
handle slow connections. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue
to cause a denial of service. (CVE-2026-42792)
It was discovered that Erlang incorrectly handled certain external term
format data, leading to heap corruption. An attacker could possibly use
this issue to cause Erlang to crash, resulting in a denial of service.
This issue only affected Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and Ubuntu 26.04 LTS.
(CVE-2026-55737)
It was discovered that Erlang incorrectly handled invalid external term
format data. An attacker could possibly use this issue to cause Erlang to
crash, resulting in a denial of service. This issue only affected Ubuntu
26.04
Red Hat
erlang/otp: erts: otp: Erlang/OTP: Denial of Service via integer underflow in ETF decoding
vendor_redhat·2026-07-27·CVSS 8.2
CVE-2026-54890 [HIGH] CWE-191 erlang/otp: erts: otp: Erlang/OTP: Denial of Service via integer underflow in ETF decoding
erlang/otp: erts: otp: Erlang/OTP: Denial of Service via integer underflow in ETF decoding
A flaw was found in Erlang/OTP. A remote attacker can exploit an integer underflow vulnerability in the External Term Format (ETF) decoder, specifically within the `binary_to_term` function. By sending a specially crafted ETF payload with a zero-length `BIT_BINARY_EXT` tag, the attacker can trigger an unsigned integer underflow. This leads to an attempt to allocate an excessively large amount of memory, causing the Erlang Virtual Machine (VM) to crash, resulting in a denial of service. This VM-level crash cannot be handled by standard Erlang error mechanisms.
Package: erlang27 (Red Hat Hardened Images) - Affected
No detection rules found.
No public exploits indexed.
https://cna.erlef.org/cves/CVE-2026-54890.htmlhttps://github.com/erlang/otp/commit/dc1bf9344c0ce62717cf60866590cea0242780fdhttps://github.com/erlang/otp/security/advisories/GHSA-54pw-5645-jh86https://osv.dev/vulnerability/EEF-CVE-2026-54890https://www.erlang.org/doc/system/versions.html#order-of-versions
2026-07-27
Published