Erlang/OTP 26.2 < 27.3.4.15 / 28.0 < 28.5.0.4 / 29.0 < 29.0.4 Policy Tree DoS (CVE-2026-59251)

medium Nessus Plugin ID 331346

Synopsis

The remote host is missing a security update.

Description

The version of Erlang/OTP installed on the remote host is 26.2 prior to 27.3.4.15, 28.0 prior to 28.5.0.4, or 29.0 prior to 29.0.4. It is, therefore, affected by a vulnerability:

- Allocation of resources without limits in Erlang/OTP public_key certificate path validation allows a remote unauthenticated attacker to cause denial of service by sending a crafted X.509 certificate chain during the TLS handshake. During RFC 5280 policy processing, the certificate policy tree grows without an upper bound. A modest chain with many policies per certificate is enough to pin BEAM schedulers and exhaust the node's memory, taking down the entire VM.
(CVE-2026-59251)

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

Solution

Upgrade to Erlang/OTP version 27.3.4.15, 28.5.0.4, or 29.0.4 or later.

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 331346

File Name: erlang_otp_CVE-2026-59251.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: Local

Agent: windows, macosx, unix

Family: Misc.

Published: 7/31/2026

Updated: 7/31/2026

Configuration: Enable thorough checks (optional)

Supported Sensors: Nessus Agent, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Low

Score: 3

Percentile: 23.73

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 4.3

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

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

Vulnerability Information

CPE: cpe:/a:erlang:erlang%2fotp

Required KB Items: installed_sw/Erlang-OTP

Patch Publication Date: 7/27/2026

Vulnerability Publication Date: 7/27/2026

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2026-59251

Detections

Analytics