# CVE-2025-48040: Malicious Key Exchange Messages may Lead to Excessive Resource Consumption

> Attackers can cause excessive resource consumption in Erlang OTP SSH SFTP modules via malicious key exchange messages, leading to denial of service.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.9 (`CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 11 Sep 2025
- **Updated:** 24 Jul 2026
- **Also known as:** AZL-67278, AZL-67293, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-48040, EEF-CVE-2025-48040, GHSA-h7rg-6rjg-4cph, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-48040

## What is CVE-2025-48040?

CVE-2025-48040 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Erlang OTP, published on 11 Sep 2025. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in Erlang OTP ssh (ssh_sftp modules) allows Excessive Allocation, Flooding. This vulnerability is associated with program files lib/ssh/src/ssh_sftpd.erl.

This issue affects OTP from OTP 17.0 before OTP 28.0.3, OTP 27.3.4.3 and OTP 26.2.5.15, corresponding to ssh from 3.0.1 before 5.3.3, 5.2.11.3 and 5.1.4.12.

Weakness: CWE-770 (Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling), CWE-400 (Uncontrolled Resource Consumption)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-48040?


## How do I fix CVE-2025-48040?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2025-48040 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-48040 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2025-48040 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-48040 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Erlang OTP, published on 11 Sep 2025. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-48040 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Erlang OTP. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-48040/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-48040/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-48040
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-48040
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-48040

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-48040/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.