Live Exposure Defense: From CVE to Confirmed Exposure in 12 Hours – See more

Back
New CVE Detected

CVE-2026-75538 – Denial of Service (Buffer Overflow) – Erlang/OTP inet TCP Driver

Be the first to know when new zero-days emerge:

Subscribe to Email Alerts
Subscribe to RSS Feed

Summary

CVE-2026-75538 is a signed integer overflow (CWE-190) leading to a heap-based buffer overflow (CWE-122) in the Erlang/OTP inet TCP driver when operating in {packet,4} mode. An unauthenticated remote attacker who can connect to an exposed Erlang TCP port using this packet mode can trigger the overflow, most likely crashing the BEAM VM. The issue carries a CVSS v4.0 base score of 8.2 (High).

Technical details

  • Root cause: an incorrect packet length calculation in the inet driver contains a signed overflow.
  • Trigger conditions: the target port must be configured to use the inet driver with {packet,4} framing; the attacker sends a crafted packet with a length field that triggers the overflow.
  • Attack vector: network, requires only a TCP connection to the exposed Erlang port; no authentication or user interaction is required.
  • Impact: the overflow can write past the receive buffer into the VM allocator area and beyond (up to ~2 GB), corrupting allocator metadata and adjacent memory blocks. This is expected to crash the BEAM VM (denial of service); achieving remote code execution via this path is considered extremely unfeasible.

Affected software

  • Erlang/OTP versions 17.0 up to (but not including) 27.3.4.17
  • Erlang/OTP 28.0 up to (but not including) 28.5.0.6
  • Erlang/OTP 29.0 up to (but not including) 29.0.6
  • Corresponding erts versions: 6.0 up to (but not including) 15.2.7.13, 16.0 up to (but not including) 16.4.0.6, and 17.0 up to (but not including) 17.0.6
  • Whether OTP releases prior to 17.0 (erts before 6.0) are affected is unknown

Severity

CVSS v4.0 Base Score: 8.2 (High)
Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

Mitigation and recommended actions

  • Immediate: Upgrade to OTP 27.3.4.17, OTP 28.5.0.6, OTP 29.0.6, or later (corresponding erts 15.2.7.13, 16.4.0.6, or 17.0.6), depending on release track.
  • If patching is not immediately possible:
    • Configure {packet_size, MaxPacketSize} on affected sockets to a value significantly less than 2^31 to limit the achievable overflow.
    • Avoid exposing TCP listeners using {packet,4} mode to untrusted networks; restrict access via firewall rules or network segmentation.

How IONIX identifies potentially affected assets

IONIX matches the following signal against data already collected when it crawled the asset; identifying the technology sends no request beyond that crawl.

  • HTTP Server response header: Erlang, Erlang OTP/

References

Are you exposed?

Get a free report of your organization’s exposure to this CVE and threat

  • Mapping of all Assets with this Technology
  • Identification of potentially exposed assets to this CVE
  • Confirmation of verified exploitable assets
Get Exposure Report

How IONIX’s External Exposure Management Platform Detects and Validates
Zero-Days to Shrink MTTR

1

Map your entire attack surface (continously)

IONIX uses multi-factor discovery methods, including DNS analysis, certificate mapping, metadata inspection, and more, to automatically map every internet-facing asset across your environment. This includes cloud instances, third-party platforms, shadow IT, and even forgotten infrastructure that traditional tools miss.

2

Monitor for new CVEs

Dozens of threat intel feeds using agentic technology are continuously analyzed to detect the appearance of proof-of-concept code, exploit kits, and indicators of active targeting. IONIX goes further by applying AI to proactively evaluate whether emerging vulnerabilities are likely to be exploited, even before PoCs go public.

3

Identify Potential External Exposures

Not all CVEs matter. IONIX filters vulnerabilities by asking attacker-centric questions: Can it be reached from the internet? Does it require authentication? Is it being exploited in the wild? This dramatically reduces noise and focuses teams on threats that can actually be weaponized.

4

Create Safe, Scalable Exploit Validations

IONIX transforms real-world PoCs into safe, non-intrusive test payloads that can be run in production environments without disruption. These simulations are precisely targeted to the systems that are vulnerable, ensuring rapid validation without unnecessary load.

5

Execute Exploit Validations

By combining context about software stack, versioning, exposure status, and reachability, IONIX ensures that only the right payloads are executed against the right assets, maximizing efficiency and minimizing risk.

6

Drive Fast and Actionable Remediation

Results are routed through integrations with ticketing, SOAR, and SIEM tools. Issues are written in plain language, bundled into remediation clusters, and prioritized based on asset criticality, exploitability, and blast radius. This shortens mean time to remediation (MTTR) and empowers teams to act with confidence.

Are you exposed?

Get a free report of your organization’s exposure to this CVE and threat

  • Mapping of all Assets with this Technology
  • Identification of potentially exposed assets to this CVE
  • Confirmation of verified exploitable assets
Get Exposure Report
Close

Subscribe to Threat Center RSS

Copy/paste the link below into your preferred RSS reader or follow these instructions to subscribe to Slack alerts.

Open RSS feedSlack setup instructions

Close

Get Real-Time CVE Alerts to Your Email

Be the first to know when new zero-days emerge