Medium severity · published Jul 2, 2026
CVE-2026-55950
DTLS listener crash via race condition in dtls_packet_demux causes denial of service for all sessions
5.9
CVSS
0.4%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) race condition vulnerability in Erlang/OTP ssl (dtls_packet_demux module) allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to crash all active DTLS sessions on a listener. A DTLS server listener uses a single shared dtls_packet_demux gen_server process to route incoming UDP datagrams to the correct connection handler. When a DTLS client reconnects rapidly from the same source address and port (sending multiple ClientHello messages in quick succession), a race condition in the demux's internal gb_trees key-value store causes a {key_exists, {old, Client}} crash, terminating the demux process. Because the demux is shared across all DTLS associations on that listener, its crash immediately kills every active DTLS session, not just the attacker's. The attack is pre-authentication: the attacker only needs to send UDP datagrams containing valid ClientHello messages from the same source IP and port before the intermediate DOWN monitor message is processed by the gen_server. No credentials, no completed handshake, and no special configuration are required, and the crash can be repeated indefinitely to create a persistent denial of service for all clients of that listener. This vulnerability is associated with program file lib/ssl/src/dtls_packet_demux.erl. This issue affects OTP from OTP 25.3 before OTP 29.0.3, OTP 28.5.0.3 and OTP 27.3.4.14, corresponding to ssl from 10.9 before 11.7.3, 11.6.0.3 and 11.2.12.10.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
High
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.4% · higher than 32% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
OT
OTP · Erlang
10.9; 25.3; 44dcb4c3d900777493ce2a6129f451aa475811f9 before e44d2bf01c4473ef2ea7f09e3523cf96de6e4a04 · source: vendor
ER
Erlang/otp · Erlang
25.3 before 27.3.4.14; 28.0 before 28.5.0.3; 29.0 before 29.0.3 · source: NVD
ER
Erlang/ssl · Erlang
10.9 before 11.2.12.10; 11.3 before 11.6.0.3; 11.7 before 11.7.3 · source: NVD
Affected product
OT
OTP
Erlang
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