What happened
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.
Affected versions
OTP: 17.0 through before 27.3.4.17 (otp); 28.0 through before 28.5.0.6 (otp); 29.0 through before 29.0.6 (otp); 6.0 through before 15.2.7.13 (otp); 16.0 through before 16.4.0.6 (otp); 17.0 through before 17.0.6 (otp); 84adefa331c4159d432d22840663c38f155cd4c1 through before 08e8efdba8500d2d6f54c6b1de1492b228017c9b (git) Fixed: See vendor advisory.
Why it matters
Review the vendor advisory and exposure of the affected product to determine operational impact.
Detection & mitigation
- Apply vendor-provided updates or mitigations.
- Review affected product exposure and access logs.
Public PoC references
No public PoC reference has passed the current publication threshold.