A flaw was found in the OpenSSH package. For each ping packet the SSH server receives, a pong packet is allocated in a memory buffer and stored in a queue of packages. It is only freed when the server/client key exchange has finished. A malicious client may keep sending such packages, leading to an uncontrolled increase in memory consumption on the server side. Consequently, the server may become unavailable, resulting in a denial of service attack.
https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2025/02/18/4
https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2025/02/18/1
https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2025-26466
https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20250228-0002/
https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2025-26466