An attacker that connects to an open Erlang TCP port that uses the inet driver with {packet,4} mode can use a signed overflow in an incorrect packet length calculation to overflow the receive buffer into the VM allocator area and beyond up to about 2 GB. This would easily trash the allocated block's allocator metadata footer, and the next block, if any, and most likely cause the BEAM VM to crash. Utilizing this with precision enough to achieve Remote Code Execution would be extremely unfeasible. This issue affects OTP from OTP 17.0 before OTP 27.3.4.17, from OTP 28.0 before OTP 28.5.0.6, and from OTP 29.0 before OTP 29.0.6, corresponding to erts from 6.0 before 15.2.7.13, from 16.0 before 16.4.0.6, and from 17.0 before 17.0.6. Whether OTP before OTP 17.0, corresponding to erts before 6.0, is affected is unknown.

The remote Ubuntu 14.04 LTS / 16.04 LTS / 18.04 LTS / 20.04 LTS / 22.04 LTS / 24.04 LTS / 26.04 LTS host has packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the USN-8827-1 advisory.

    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 LTS. (CVE-2026-54890)

    It was discovered that Erlang incorrectly handled certain packet lengths, leading to a buffer overflow. A     remote attacker could possibly use this issue to cause Erlang to crash or execute arbitrary code.
    (CVE-2026-75538)

    It was discovered that the Erlang Megaco flex scanner incorrectly handled certain input, leading to a     buffer overflow. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to cause Erlang to crash or execute     arbitrary code. (CVE-2026-59250)

    It was discovered that Erlang TLS clients incorrectly accepted cipher suites that they had not offered. A     remote attacker could possibly use this issue to intercept and modify TLS communications. (CVE-2026-55953)

    It was discovered that Erlang incorrectly handled certain certificate chains. A remote attacker could     possibly use this issue to cause Erlang to use excessive resources, leading to a denial of service. This     issue only affected Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. (CVE-2026-58227)

    It was discovered that Erlang incorrectly handled certain certificate policies. A remote attacker could     possibly use this issue to cause Erlang to use excessive resources, leading to a denial of service. This     issue only affected Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. (CVE-2026-59251)

    It was discovered that the Erlang HTTP server incorrectly handled certain conflicting HTTP framing     headers. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to smuggle HTTP requests. (CVE-2026-23941,     CVE-2026-73812)

    It was discovered that the Erlang HTTP server incorrectly handled certain malformed chunk sizes. A remote     attacker could possibly use this issue to cause Erlang to crash, resulting in a denial of service.
    (CVE-2026-69664)

    It was discovered that the Erlang HTTP server did not properly limit the size of chunked request bodies. A     remote attacker could possibly use this issue to cause Erlang to use excessive resources, leading to a     denial of service. (CVE-2026-74835)

    It was discovered that the Erlang HTTP server incorrectly handled certain equivalent request paths and     differences in character case. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to bypass authentication     and gain unauthorized access. (CVE-2026-66835, CVE-2026-73270)

    It was discovered that the Erlang HTTP server did not properly limit simultaneous connections. A remote     attacker could possibly use this issue to cause Erlang to use excessive resources, leading to a denial of     service. This issue only affected Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS,     Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. (CVE-2026-70399)

    It was discovered that the Erlang HTTP server incorrectly handled header continuation lines. A remote     attacker could possibly use this issue to smuggle HTTP requests. (CVE-2026-66357)

    It was discovered that the Erlang HTTP server incorrectly handled certain malformed header names. A remote     attacker could possibly use this issue to smuggle HTTP requests. This issue only affected Ubuntu 20.04     LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. (CVE-2026-73276)

    It was discovered that the Erlang HTTP server incorrectly handled incomplete request bodies. A remote     attacker could possibly use this issue to cause Erlang to use excessive resources, leading to a denial of     service. (CVE-2026-71380)

    It was discovered that the Erlang HTTP client did not properly limit the size of HTTP response headers. A     malicious HTTP server could possibly use this issue to cause Erlang to use excessive resources, leading to     a denial of service. (CVE-2026-55951)

    It was discovered that Erlang did not properly limit the length of port numbers when parsing URIs. A     remote attacker could possibly use this issue to cause Erlang to use excessive resources, leading to a     denial of service. This issue only affected Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, and     Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. (CVE-2026-59696)

    It was discovered that the Erlang SNMP application did not properly limit the size of certain integer     values. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to cause Erlang to use excessive resources,     leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2026-70405)

    It was discovered that the Erlang LDAP client did not properly limit the length of port numbers in     referral URLs. A malicious LDAP server could possibly use this issue to cause Erlang to use excessive     resources, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2026-70409)

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Ubuntu security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed that are impacted by a vulnerability without a vendor supplied patch available.

  - An attacker that connects to an open Erlang TCP port that uses the inet driver with {packet,4} mode can     use a signed overflow in an incorrect packet length calculation to overflow the receive buffer into the VM     allocator area and beyond up to about 2 GB. This would easily trash the allocated block's allocator     metadata footer, and the next block, if any, and most likely cause the BEAM VM to crash. Utilizing this     with precision enough to achieve Remote Code Execution would be extremely unfeasible. This issue affects     OTP from OTP 17.0 before OTP 27.3.4.17, from OTP 28.0 before OTP 28.5.0.6, and from OTP 29.0 before OTP     29.0.6, corresponding to erts from 6.0 before 15.2.7.13, from 16.0 before 16.4.0.6, and from 17.0 before     17.0.6. Whether OTP before OTP 17.0, corresponding to erts before 6.0, is affected is unknown.
    (CVE-2026-75538)

Note that Nessus relies on the presence of the package as reported by the vendor.

The version of FreeBSD installed on the remote host is prior to tested version. It is, therefore, affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the 62b56853-a609-11f1-9195-4c526214c986 advisory.

    The OTP 29.0.6 release notes report:
    A gen_tcp socket using the inet driver and {packet,4} had               a bug if receiving a packet with size just below INT_MAX.
    That packet size wrapped in size calculations and made the               received data overwrite its allocation and trash allocator               metadata and subsequent block(s), causing the VM to crash.
    This made it possible for anyone to remotely crash an               Erlang node that used {packet,4} on a reachable socket.

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the FreeBSD security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Type	Severity
350965	Ubuntu 14.04 LTS / 16.04 LTS / 18.04 LTS / 20.04 LTS / 22.04 LTS / 24.04 LTS / 26.04 LTS : Erlang vulnerabilities (USN-8827-1)	Nessus	Ubuntu Local Security Checks	Local	critical
342556	Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2026-75538	Nessus	Misc.	Local	high
342356	FreeBSD : Erlang/OTP -- remote crash via gen_tcp with {packet,4} (62b56853-a609-11f1-9195-4c526214c986)	Nessus	FreeBSD Local Security Checks	Local	high

Detections

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CVE-2026-75538

high

Tenable Plugins

critical

high

high