CVE-2026-42792
Fixed in a distro release EPSS <1%CVSS 6.3
Improper Handling of Exceptional Conditions vulnerability in Erlang OTP erts (epmd) allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to permanently terminate the Erlang Port Mapper Daemon (epmd) via connection slot exhaustion. The do_accept function in erts/epmd/src/epmd_srv.c calls epmd_cleanup_exit() when accept(2) returns EMFILE (per-process file descriptor limit reached) or ENFILE (system-wide file descriptor limit reached), rather than treating these as recoverable conditions. An attacker can exhaust epmd's file descriptor slots by holding many TCP connections open while periodically sending a single byte to reset the idle timeout, then causing accept(2) to return EMFILE, which kills the daemon. epmd has no per-source-IP connection cap, making the attack feasible from a single source. On Debian/Ubuntu default packaging the impact is amplified: the systemd unit inherits a low file descriptor soft limit, and repeated daemon deaths trigger systemd's start-rate-limit, permanently failing both epmd.service and epmd.socket and requiring manual operator intervention to recover. This issue affects OTP from OTP 17.0 before OTP 29.0.4, OTP 28.5.0.4 and OTP 27.3.4.15.
Products: erlang otp
Distro releases
| Release | Package | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| Debian 12 | erlang | no fix |
| Debian 13 | erlang | 1:27.3.4.1+dfsg-1+deb13u3 |
| Debian 14 | erlang | 1:29.0.4+dfsg-1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27 | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-asn1 | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-common_test | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-compiler | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-crypto | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-debugger | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-dialyzer | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-diameter | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-edoc | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-eldap | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-erl_interface | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-erts | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-et | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-eunit | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-examples | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-ftp | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-gdb-tools | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-inets | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-jinterface | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-kernel | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-megaco | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-mnesia | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-observer | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-odbc | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-os_mon | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-parsetools | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-public_key | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-reltool | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-runtime_tools | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-sasl | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-snmp | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-ssh | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-ssl | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-stdlib | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-syntax_tools | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-tftp | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-tools | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-wx | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| Red Hat hummingbird 1 | erlang27-xmerl | 0:27.3.4.15-0.1.hum1 |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-ESPOS | erlang | 23.3.4.19-150300.3.39.1 |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS | erlang | 23.3.4.19-150300.3.39.1 |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-ESPOS | erlang | 23.3.4.19-150300.3.39.1 |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS | erlang | 23.3.4.19-150300.3.39.1 |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Server Applications 15 SP7 | erlang | 23.3.4.19-150300.3.39.1 |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Server Applications 15 SP7 | erlang26 | 26.2.1-150300.7.28.1 |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4-LTSS | erlang | 23.3.4.19-150300.3.39.1 |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5-LTSS | erlang | 23.3.4.19-150300.3.39.1 |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6-LTSS | erlang | 23.3.4.19-150300.3.39.1 |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6-LTSS | erlang26 | 26.2.1-150300.7.28.1 |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP4 | erlang | 23.3.4.19-150300.3.39.1 |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP5 | erlang | 23.3.4.19-150300.3.39.1 |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP6 | erlang | 23.3.4.19-150300.3.39.1 |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP6 | erlang26 | 26.2.1-150300.7.28.1 |
| Ubuntu 22.04 LTS | erlang | 1:24.2.1+dfsg-1ubuntu0.7 |
| Ubuntu 24.04 LTS | erlang | 1:25.3.2.8+dfsg-1ubuntu4.7 |
| Ubuntu 26.04 LTS | erlang | 1:27.3.4.6+dfsg-1ubuntu0.1 |
| Ubuntu Pro 14.04 LTS | erlang | 1:16.b.3-dfsg-1ubuntu2.2+esm2 |
| Ubuntu Pro 16.04 LTS | erlang | 1:18.3-dfsg-1ubuntu3.1+esm3 |
| Ubuntu Pro 18.04 LTS | erlang | 1:20.2.2+dfsg-1ubuntu2+esm3 |
| Ubuntu Pro 20.04 LTS | erlang | 1:22.2.7+dfsg-1ubuntu0.5+esm2 |
| openSUSE Tumbleweed | erlang | 28.5.0.4-1.1 |
| openSUSE Tumbleweed | erlang27 | 27.1.3-3.1 |