Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in Erlang/OTP ssh allows an authenticated remote attacker to exhaust node memory by repeatedly opening session channels that are never assigned a handler.
The "session" clause of ssh_connection:handle_msg/4 checks only minimal_remote_max_packet_size before calling setup_session/5, which unconditionally builds a #channel{} record and stores it in the ETS channel cache. The max_channels daemon option is consulted only by ssh_channel_sup:max_num_channels_not_exceeded/2, which counts supervisor children, so a channel that never gets a shell, exec, or subsystem handler is invisible to the limit and setting the option to a finite value does not mitigate the attack. RFC 4254 section 5.1 permits many session channels per connection, and each record costs only a few hundred bytes, so a single authenticated connection can accumulate channels until the node runs out of memory and the emulator terminates, affecting every application on it. No file contents, credentials, or write access are obtainable.
This issue affects OTP from OTP 18.1.2 before OTP 27.3.4.18, OTP 28.5.0.7, and OTP 29.1.1, corresponding to ssh from 4.1.1 before 5.2.11.13, 5.5.2.6, and 6.0.6. Whether OTP before OTP 18.1.2, corresponding to ssh before 4.1.1, is affected is unknown.
Metrics
Affected Vendors & Products
References
History
Tue, 22 Sep 2026 11:30:00 +0000
| Type | Values Removed | Values Added |
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| Metrics |
ssvc
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Tue, 22 Sep 2026 11:15:00 +0000
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| First Time appeared |
Erlang erlang/otp
Erlang otp |
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| Vendors & Products |
Erlang erlang/otp
Erlang otp |
Tue, 22 Sep 2026 11:00:00 +0000
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| Description | Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in Erlang/OTP ssh allows an authenticated remote attacker to exhaust node memory by repeatedly opening session channels that are never assigned a handler. The "session" clause of ssh_connection:handle_msg/4 checks only minimal_remote_max_packet_size before calling setup_session/5, which unconditionally builds a #channel{} record and stores it in the ETS channel cache. The max_channels daemon option is consulted only by ssh_channel_sup:max_num_channels_not_exceeded/2, which counts supervisor children, so a channel that never gets a shell, exec, or subsystem handler is invisible to the limit and setting the option to a finite value does not mitigate the attack. RFC 4254 section 5.1 permits many session channels per connection, and each record costs only a few hundred bytes, so a single authenticated connection can accumulate channels until the node runs out of memory and the emulator terminates, affecting every application on it. No file contents, credentials, or write access are obtainable. This issue affects OTP from OTP 17.0 before OTP 27.3.4.18, OTP 28.5.0.7, and OTP 29.1.1, corresponding to ssh from 3.0.1 before 5.2.11.13, 5.5.2.6, and 6.0.6. Whether OTP before OTP 17.0, corresponding to ssh before 3.0.1, is affected is unknown. | Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in Erlang/OTP ssh allows an authenticated remote attacker to exhaust node memory by repeatedly opening session channels that are never assigned a handler. The "session" clause of ssh_connection:handle_msg/4 checks only minimal_remote_max_packet_size before calling setup_session/5, which unconditionally builds a #channel{} record and stores it in the ETS channel cache. The max_channels daemon option is consulted only by ssh_channel_sup:max_num_channels_not_exceeded/2, which counts supervisor children, so a channel that never gets a shell, exec, or subsystem handler is invisible to the limit and setting the option to a finite value does not mitigate the attack. RFC 4254 section 5.1 permits many session channels per connection, and each record costs only a few hundred bytes, so a single authenticated connection can accumulate channels until the node runs out of memory and the emulator terminates, affecting every application on it. No file contents, credentials, or write access are obtainable. This issue affects OTP from OTP 18.1.2 before OTP 27.3.4.18, OTP 28.5.0.7, and OTP 29.1.1, corresponding to ssh from 4.1.1 before 5.2.11.13, 5.5.2.6, and 6.0.6. Whether OTP before OTP 18.1.2, corresponding to ssh before 4.1.1, is affected is unknown. |
| References |
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Tue, 22 Sep 2026 09:00:00 +0000
| Type | Values Removed | Values Added |
|---|---|---|
| Description | Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in Erlang/OTP ssh allows an authenticated remote attacker to exhaust node memory by repeatedly opening session channels that are never assigned a handler. The "session" clause of ssh_connection:handle_msg/4 checks only minimal_remote_max_packet_size before calling setup_session/5, which unconditionally builds a #channel{} record and stores it in the ETS channel cache. The max_channels daemon option is consulted only by ssh_channel_sup:max_num_channels_not_exceeded/2, which counts supervisor children, so a channel that never gets a shell, exec, or subsystem handler is invisible to the limit and setting the option to a finite value does not mitigate the attack. RFC 4254 section 5.1 permits many session channels per connection, and each record costs only a few hundred bytes, so a single authenticated connection can accumulate channels until the node runs out of memory and the emulator terminates, affecting every application on it. No file contents, credentials, or write access are obtainable. This issue affects OTP from OTP 17.0 before OTP 27.3.4.18, OTP 28.5.0.7, and OTP 29.1.1, corresponding to ssh from 3.0.1 before 5.2.11.13, 5.5.2.6, and 6.0.6. Whether OTP before OTP 17.0, corresponding to ssh before 3.0.1, is affected is unknown. | |
| Title | SSH daemon allocates unbounded idle session channels, bypassing max_channels | |
| First Time appeared |
Erlang
Erlang erlang\/otp |
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| Weaknesses | CWE-770 | |
| CPEs | cpe:2.3:a:erlang:erlang\/otp:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* | |
| Vendors & Products |
Erlang
Erlang erlang\/otp |
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| References |
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| Metrics |
cvssV4_0
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Status: PUBLISHED
Assigner: EEF
Published: 2026-09-22T08:49:21.760Z
Updated: 2026-09-24T20:07:42.062Z
Reserved: 2026-08-17T13:30:02.155Z
Link: CVE-2026-68956
Updated: 2026-09-22T10:15:32.927Z
Status : Deferred
Published: 2026-09-22T09:17:05.313
Modified: 2026-09-24T21:17:30.590
Link: CVE-2026-68956
No data.