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FreeBSD : Erlang/OTP -- denial of service via exponential certificate policy tree growth (445d674f-89e1-11f1-b35c-4c526214c986)

high Nessus Plugin ID 330272

Synopsis

The remote FreeBSD host is missing one or more security-related updates.

Description

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 445d674f-89e1-11f1-b35c-4c526214c986 advisory.

 https://github.com/erlang/otp/security/advisories/GHSA-622p-qfh6-c352 reports:
 A remote attacker can trigger a denial of service through TLS certificate handling. By sending a specially crafted certificate chain with multiple certificate policies at each level, the policy tree expands exponentially during validation, growing as M^K nodes (where M is the number of policies per certificate and K is the chain depth). This pins schedulers and exhausts memory without any authentication. Any application using SSL/TLS that validates certificate paths is affected, as are direct calls to public_key:pkix_path_validation/3.

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.

Solution

Update the affected packages.

See Also

https://github.com/erlang/otp/security/advisories/GHSA-622p-qfh6-c352

http://www.nessus.org/u?3d1b987e

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 330272

File Name: freebsd_pkg_445d674f89e111f1b35c4c526214c986.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: Local

Published: 7/28/2026

Updated: 7/28/2026

Supported Sensors: Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Low

Score: 3

Percentile: 23.72

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 4.3

Temporal Score: 3.2

Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2026-59251

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 5.9

Temporal Score: 5.2

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:U/RL:O/RC:C

CVSS v4

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 8.7

Threat Score: 6.6

Threat Vector: CVSS:4.0/E:U

Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:L

Vulnerability Information

CPE: cpe:/o:freebsd:freebsd, p-cpe:/a:freebsd:freebsd:erlang-runtime27, p-cpe:/a:freebsd:freebsd:erlang-runtime28, p-cpe:/a:freebsd:freebsd:erlang-runtime29, p-cpe:/a:freebsd:freebsd:erlang

Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/FreeBSD/release, Host/FreeBSD/pkg_info

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 7/27/2026

Vulnerability Publication Date: 7/27/2026

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2026-59251