High severity · published Sep 1, 2026
CVE-2026-75538
A Signed Length Overflow in Erlang/OTP's inet TCP Driver Overflows the Receive Buffer Into BEAM VM Memory From an Unauthenticated Peer
8.2
CVSS
0.9%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
An attacker that connects to an open Erlang TCP port that uses the inet driver with {packet,4} mode can use a signed overflow in an incorrect packet length calculation to overflow the receive buffer into the VM allocator area and beyond up to about 2 GB.
This would easily trash the allocated block's allocator metadata footer, and the next block, if any, and most likely cause the BEAM VM to crash. Utilizing this with precision enough to achieve Remote Code Execution would be extremely unfeasible.
This issue affects OTP from OTP 17.0 before OTP 27.3.4.17, from OTP 28.0 before OTP 28.5.0.6, and from OTP 29.0 before OTP 29.0.6, corresponding to erts from 6.0 before 15.2.7.13, from 16.0 before 16.4.0.6, and from 17.0 before 17.0.6. Whether OTP before OTP 17.0, corresponding to erts before 6.0, is affected is unknown.
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.9% · higher than 58% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
OT
OTP · Erlang
17.0 before 27.3.4.17; 28.0 before 28.5.0.6; 29.0 before 29.0.6; 6.0 before 15.2.7.13; 16.0 before 16.4.0.6; 17.0 before 17.0.6; +1 more · source: vendor
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-75538
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-75538
cna.erlef.org
https://cna.erlef.org/cves/CVE-2026-75538.html
github.com
https://github.com/erlang/otp/commit/08e8efdba8500d2d6f54c6b1de1492b228017c9b
github.com
https://github.com/erlang/otp/security/advisories/GHSA-8m6r-2pj2-25pm
osv.dev
https://osv.dev/vulnerability/EEF-CVE-2026-75538
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