Medium severity · published Mar 13, 2026
CVE-2026-23943
Improper Handling of Highly Compressed Data (Compression Bomb) vulnerability in Erlang OTP ssh (ssh_transport modules) allows Denial of Service via Resource Depletion
5.3
CVSS
0.7%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
Improper Handling of Highly Compressed Data (Compression Bomb) vulnerability in Erlang OTP ssh (ssh_transport modules) allows Denial of Service via Resource Depletion.
The SSH transport layer advertises legacy zlib compression by default and inflates attacker-controlled payloads pre-authentication without any size limit, enabling reliable memory exhaustion DoS.
Two compression algorithms are affected:
* zlib: Activates immediately after key exchange, enabling unauthenticated attacks
* zlib@openssh.com: Activates post-authentication, enabling authenticated attacks
Each SSH packet can decompress ~255 MB from 256 KB of wire data (1029:1 amplification ratio). Multiple packets can rapidly exhaust available memory, causing OOM kills in memory-constrained environments.
This vulnerability is associated with program files lib/ssh/src/ssh_transport.erl and program routines ssh_transport:decompress/2, ssh_transport:handle_packet_part/4.
This issue affects OTP from OTP 17.0 before OTP 28.4.1, OTP 27.3.4.9 and OTP 26.2.5.18, corresponding to ssh from 3.0.1 before 5.5.1, 5.2.11.6 and 5.1.4.14.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
Low
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.7% · higher than 52% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
ER
Erlang/otp · Erlang
17.0 before 26.2.5.18; 27.0 before 27.3.4.9; 28.0 before 28.4.1 · source: NVD
ER
Erlang/ssh · Erlang
3.0.1 before 5.1.4.14; 5.2 before 5.2.11.6; 5.5 through 5.5.1 · source: NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-23943
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-23943
Vendor Advisory
https://cna.erlef.org/cves/CVE-2026-23943.html
Patch
https://github.com/erlang/otp/commit/0c1c04b191f6ab940e8fcfabce39eb5a8a6440a4
Patch
https://github.com/erlang/otp/commit/43a87b949bdff12d629a8c34146711d9da93b1b1
Patch
https://github.com/erlang/otp/commit/93073c3bd338c60cd2bae715ce6a1d4ffc1a8fd3
Vendor Advisory
https://github.com/erlang/otp/security/advisories/GHSA-c836-qprm-jw9r
Third Party Advisory
https://osv.dev/vulnerability/EEF-CVE-2026-23943
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