CVE-2026-58227 TLS/DTLS denial of service via unbounded recursion on cross-signed peer certificate chain
Remote attackers can crash Erlang/OTP nodes by sending crafted cross-signed certificate chains that trigger unbounded recursion during TLS/DTLS handshakes.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-58227?
CVE-2026-58227 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Erlang OTP, published on 27 Jul 2026. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Official description
The Erlang/OTP ssl application does not detect cycles when reconstructing an incomplete peer certificate chain during a TLS or DTLS handshake. In ssl_certificate:handle_incomplete_chain/5, the received chain is passed to ssl_certificate:build_certificate_chain/5, which walks issuer relationships via ssl_certificate:do_certificate_chain/7 with no cycle detection and no depth limit. When the peer supplies two mutually cross-signed certificates in unordered form (A issues B, B issues A), the issuer lookup alternates between the two certificates and the pair of functions recurses indefinitely, growing the call stack and chain accumulator without bound.
An unauthenticated remote attacker can send a crafted certificate chain in a TLS or DTLS Certificate handshake message to exhaust available memory and crash the BEAM node. Only a TCP connection and a partial handshake are required; no authentication or completed handshake is needed, and both TLS/DTLS servers and clients are affected when processing peer certificate messages.
This issue affects OTP from OTP 23.2 before OTP 29.0.4, OTP 28.5.0.4 and OTP 27.3.4.15, corresponding to ssl from 10.2 before 11.7.4, 11.6.0.4 and 11.2.12.11.
Weakness: CWE-674
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-58227?
It affects 2 products.
Products include Erlang Erlang\/Otp, Erlang Erlang\/Ssl.
How do I fix CVE-2026-58227?
Upgrade to a fixed version.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2026-58227 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-58227 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Erlang OTP
- CVE-2022-37026 Auth bypass in n/a
- CVE-2016-10253 Memory corruption in n/a
- CVE-2026-55953 TLS 1.2 and DTLS client accepts unoffered anonymous cipher suite, bypassing server authentication
- CVE-2026-49759 Stack buffer overflow in SCTP error cause parsing in inet_drv allows remote VM crash
- CVE-2026-59251 Denial of service via exponential certificate policy tree growth in path validation
Sources
Also known as AZL-94205, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-58227, EEF-CVE-2026-58227, GHSA-r5jr-mq46-vmhw, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-58227.