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CVE-2026-68956
Published:September 22, 2026
Updated:September 22, 2026
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in Erlang/OTP ssh allows an authenticated remote attacker to exhaust node memory by repeatedly opening session channels that are never assigned a handler. The "session" clause of ssh_connection:handle_msg/4 checks only minimal_remote_max_packet_size before calling setup_session/5, which unconditionally builds a #channel{} record and stores it in the ETS channel cache. The max_channels daemon option is consulted only by ssh_channel_sup:max_num_channels_not_exceeded/2, which counts supervisor children, so a channel that never gets a shell, exec, or subsystem handler is invisible to the limit and setting the option to a finite value does not mitigate the attack. RFC 4254 section 5.1 permits many session channels per connection, and each record costs only a few hundred bytes, so a single authenticated connection can accumulate channels until the node runs out of memory and the emulator terminates, affecting every application on it. No file contents, credentials, or write access are obtainable. This issue affects OTP from OTP 18.1.2 before OTP 27.3.4.18, OTP 28.5.0.7, and OTP 29.1.1, corresponding to ssh from 4.1.1 before 5.2.11.13, 5.5.2.6, and 6.0.6. Whether OTP before OTP 18.1.2, corresponding to ssh before 4.1.1, is affected is unknown.
Affected Packages
https://github.com/erlang/otp.git (GITHUB):
Affected version(s) >=OTP-29.0 <OTP-29.1.1
Fix Suggestion:
Update to version OTP-29.1.1
https://github.com/erlang/otp.git (GITHUB):
Affected version(s) >=OTP-28.0 <OTP-28.5.0.7
Fix Suggestion:
Update to version OTP-28.5.0.7
https://github.com/erlang/otp.git (GITHUB):
Affected version(s) >=OTP-27.0 <OTP-27.3.4.18
Fix Suggestion:
Update to version OTP-27.3.4.18
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CVSS v4
Base Score:
7.1
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
LOW
Attack Requirements
NONE
Privileges Required
LOW
User Interaction
NONE
Vulnerable System Confidentiality
NONE
Vulnerable System Integrity
NONE
Vulnerable System Availability
HIGH
Subsequent System Confidentiality
NONE
Subsequent System Integrity
NONE
Subsequent System Availability
NONE
CVSS v3
Base Score:
6.5
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
LOW
Privileges Required
LOW
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
NONE
Integrity
NONE
Availability
HIGH
Weakness Type (CWE)
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling