CVE-2026-59251

HIGHNVD 7.57.5—
EchelonGraph scoreMEDIUM confidence

This high-severity CVE scores 7.5 under NVD CVSS v3. EPSS exploit probability: 0.3%, top 75% of all CVEs by exploit prediction. GitHub Security Advisory data not yet ingested — confidence will rise once GHSA publishes (typical lag: hours to days for open-source ecosystem CVEs; never for infrastructure-only CVEs).

Triggered by: NVD CVSS baseline
Sources: epss, nvd
Trending — 3 sources updated this week
7.5EG
EchelonGraph verdictPlan a fixSerious severity, but no confirmed exploitation yet.
  • High severity, but no confirmed exploitation yet
CISA-KEV: Not listedEPSS PROB: 0%CVSS: 7.5Exploit: None knownExposed: 0

A fix is available — apply it.

Allocation of resources without limits in Erlang/OTP public_key certificate path validation allows a remote unauthenticated attacker to cause denial of service by sending a crafted X.509 certificate chain during the TLS handshake.

During RFC 5280 policy processing in public_key:pkix_path_validation/3, the certificate policy tree maintained by pubkey_policy_tree grows without an upper bound. When a certificate chain contains M policies per certificate and K certificates, the tree grows on the order of M^K nodes because pubkey_policy_tree:add_leaves/2 and pubkey_policy_tree:add_leaf_siblings/2 extend the tree per policy per certificate. A modest chain with many policies per certificate is enough to pin BEAM schedulers and exhaust the node's memory, taking down the entire VM. The attacker only needs to be able to present a certificate chain to the victim, which is the normal precondition for a TLS handshake, so exploitation succeeds against any incoming or outgoing TLS connection that validates the peer's chain (the default for SSL/TLS clients and mutual-TLS servers).

This is the same vulnerability class as OpenSSL's X509_verify_cert policy tree DoS.

This vulnerability is associated with program files lib/public_key/src/pubkey_policy_tree.erl and program routines pubkey_policy_tree:add_leaves/2 and pubkey_policy_tree:add_leaf_siblings/2.

This issue affects OTP from OTP 26.2 before OTP 29.0.4, OTP 28.5.0.4 and OTP 27.3.4.15, corresponding to public_key from 1.15 before 1.21.4, 1.20.3.4 and 1.17.1.5.

CVSS v3
7.5
EG Score
7.5(medium)
EG Risk
49(Track)
EG Risk 49/100SSVC: Track

EG Risk is EchelonGraph's 0–100 priority score: it fuses intrinsic severity with real-world exploitation and automatability so you can rank equal-severity CVEs and fix the most dangerous first. Higher = act sooner. Distinct from the 0–10 EG Score (severity).

How it’s computed
Severity75% × 45%
Exploitation0% × 40%
Automatability100% × 15%
Action: Routine — remediate on your standard cadence.
EPSS PROB
0%
EPSS %ILE
25%
KEV
Not listed

Published

July 27, 2026

Last Modified

August 10, 2026

Advisory Details (6)

Auto-updated Jul 27, 2026
Patch available. Sources: github, github_commit.
github_commit

commit f04c6bba38de (erlang/otp)

Fix landed in erlang/otp commit f04c6bba38de — awaiting tagged release

https://github.com/erlang/otp/commit/f04c6bba38de1cf1b1836a7d9a9fbe239bd939e8
github_commit

commit f8580fc11709 (erlang/otp)

Fix landed in erlang/otp commit f8580fc11709 — awaiting tagged release

https://github.com/erlang/otp/commit/f8580fc117098c08165f46c26fd0750c5cfb2a90
generic

Versions — Erlang System Documentation v29.0.4

https://www.erlang.org/doc/system/versions.html#order-of-versions
generic

OSV - Open Source Vulnerabilities

https://osv.dev/vulnerability/EEF-CVE-2026-59251
generic

Denial of service via exponential certificate policy tree growth in path validation | Erlang Ecosystem Foundation CNA

https://cna.erlef.org/cves/CVE-2026-59251.html
github Patch Available

Denial of Service via Exponential Certificate Policy Tree Growth · Advisory · erlang/otp · GitHub

https://github.com/erlang/otp/security/advisories/GHSA-622p-qfh6-c352

Vendor Advisories for CVE-2026-59251(1)

These vendors published their own advisory mentioning this CVE — often with vendor-specific remediation steps + affected product lists not in NVD.

Patch Availability(1)

Vendor / EcosystemFixed in / PatchReleasedSource
redhaterlang27-main-27.3.4.15-0.1.hum12026-07-28redhat

Patches are aggregated from vendor advisories (Red Hat, Microsoft, Cisco, GitHub) and package ecosystems (OSV, GHSA). Multiple rows for the same upstream release have been deduplicated.

Affected Packages

(4 across 4 ecosystems)
Debian:11(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFixed inDependents
erlang1:23.2.6+dfsg-1 ... 1:29.0~rc3+dfsg-4 (117 versions)——
Debian:12(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFixed inDependents
erlang1:25.2.3+dfsg-1 ... 1:29.0~rc3+dfsg-4 (78 versions)——
Debian:13(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFixed inDependents
erlang1:27.3.4.1+dfsg-1, 1:27.3.4.1+dfsg-1+deb13u1, 1:27.3.4.1+dfsg-1+deb13u21:27.3.4.1+dfsg-1+deb13u3—
Debian:14(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFixed inDependents
erlang1:27.3.4.1+dfsg-1 ... 1:29.0~rc3+dfsg-4 (35 versions)1:29.0.4+dfsg-1—

Weakness Classification(1)

MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.

Additional Vendor Advisories

(1)

Vendors that published advisories for this CVE beyond the curated set above. Broader coverage but minimal per-row detail — click through for the original advisory.

Data Freshness Timeline

(refreshed 24× in last 7d / 93× in last 30d)

Each row is a source pipeline that fetched or updated this CVE on that date, with what changed. For example, "NVD update" means NVD published or revised its analysis for this CVE; "MITRE cvelistV5" means we ingested or refreshed it from the CNA feed. Most recent first.

Showing the most recent 100 of 187 total refreshes for this CVE.

  1. 2026-09-19 08:17 UTCEG score recompute
  2. 2026-09-19 08:17 UTCVendor advisory
  3. 2026-09-18 19:28 UTCEPSS rescore
  4. 2026-09-18 18:54 UTCVendor advisory
  5. 2026-09-18 02:24 UTCEG score recompute
  6. 2026-09-18 02:24 UTCVendor advisory
  7. 2026-09-17 19:31 UTCEPSS rescore
  8. 2026-09-17 01:46 UTCEG score recompute
  9. 2026-09-17 01:46 UTCVendor advisory
  10. 2026-09-16 14:08 UTCEPSS rescore
  11. 2026-09-16 06:17 UTCEG score recompute
  12. 2026-09-16 06:17 UTCVendor advisory
  13. 2026-09-16 05:15 UTCEPSS rescore
  14. 2026-09-15 09:09 UTCEG score recompute
  15. 2026-09-15 09:09 UTCVendor advisory
  16. 2026-09-15 03:11 UTCEPSS rescore
  17. 2026-09-14 08:46 UTCVendor advisory
  18. 2026-09-13 20:57 UTCEG score recompute
  19. 2026-09-13 20:57 UTCVendor advisory
  20. 2026-09-13 16:47 UTCEPSS rescore
  21. 2026-09-13 08:33 UTCVendor advisory
  22. 2026-09-12 20:45 UTCEG score recompute
  23. 2026-09-12 20:45 UTCVendor advisory
  24. 2026-09-12 08:49 UTCVendor advisory
  25. 2026-09-11 20:26 UTCEG score recompute
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  1. 2026-09-11 20:26 UTCVendor advisory
  2. 2026-09-11 14:53 UTCEPSS rescore
  3. 2026-09-11 08:37 UTCVendor advisory
  4. 2026-09-10 20:48 UTCEG score recompute
  5. 2026-09-10 20:48 UTCVendor advisory
  6. 2026-09-10 09:35 UTCEPSS rescore
  7. 2026-09-10 08:16 UTCVendor advisory
  8. 2026-09-09 08:21 UTCEG score recompute
  9. 2026-09-09 08:21 UTCVendor advisory
  10. 2026-09-08 22:01 UTCEPSS rescore
  11. 2026-09-07 21:03 UTCEG score recompute
  12. 2026-09-07 21:03 UTCVendor advisory
  13. 2026-09-07 16:01 UTCEPSS rescore
  14. 2026-09-06 23:28 UTCEG score recompute
  15. 2026-09-06 23:28 UTCVendor advisory
  16. 2026-09-06 13:47 UTCEPSS rescore
  17. 2026-09-06 07:41 UTCVendor advisory
  18. 2026-09-05 19:15 UTCEG score recompute
  19. 2026-09-05 19:15 UTCVendor advisory
  20. 2026-09-05 05:45 UTCEG score recompute
  21. 2026-09-05 05:45 UTCVendor advisory
  22. 2026-09-04 12:32 UTCEG score recompute
  23. 2026-09-04 12:32 UTCVendor advisory
  24. 2026-09-04 05:07 UTCEPSS rescore
  25. 2026-09-02 14:12 UTCEPSS rescore
  26. 2026-09-01 22:58 UTCEG score recompute
  27. 2026-09-01 22:58 UTCVendor advisory
  28. 2026-09-01 13:54 UTCEPSS rescore
  29. 2026-09-01 04:40 UTCEPSS rescore
  30. 2026-08-30 23:29 UTCEG score recompute
  31. 2026-08-30 23:29 UTCVendor advisory
  32. 2026-08-30 19:17 UTCEPSS rescore
  33. 2026-08-30 11:41 UTCEG score recompute
  34. 2026-08-30 11:41 UTCVendor advisory
  35. 2026-08-30 01:22 UTCEPSS rescore
  36. 2026-08-29 23:52 UTCEG score recompute
  37. 2026-08-29 23:52 UTCVendor advisory
  38. 2026-08-28 21:42 UTCEPSS rescore
  39. 2026-08-27 22:03 UTCEG score recompute
  40. 2026-08-27 22:03 UTCVendor advisory
  41. 2026-08-27 14:25 UTCEPSS rescore
  42. 2026-08-27 10:15 UTCVendor advisory
  43. 2026-08-26 22:26 UTCEG score recompute
  44. 2026-08-26 22:26 UTCVendor advisory
  45. 2026-08-26 14:46 UTCEPSS rescore
  46. 2026-08-26 10:37 UTCVendor advisory
  47. 2026-08-25 22:10 UTCEG score recompute
  48. 2026-08-25 22:10 UTCVendor advisory
  49. 2026-08-25 13:49 UTCEPSS rescore
  50. 2026-08-25 09:38 UTCVendor advisory
  51. 2026-08-24 21:50 UTCEG score recompute
  52. 2026-08-24 21:50 UTCVendor advisory
  53. 2026-08-24 10:02 UTCEG score recompute
  54. 2026-08-24 10:02 UTCVendor advisory
  55. 2026-08-23 22:13 UTCVendor advisory
  56. 2026-08-23 10:24 UTCEG score recompute
  57. 2026-08-23 10:24 UTCVendor advisory
  58. 2026-08-23 00:19 UTCEPSS rescore
  59. 2026-08-22 22:20 UTCVendor advisory
  60. 2026-08-22 10:31 UTCEG score recompute
  61. 2026-08-22 10:31 UTCVendor advisory
  62. 2026-08-21 23:49 UTCEPSS rescore
  63. 2026-08-21 22:43 UTCVendor advisory
  64. 2026-08-21 10:54 UTCVendor advisory
  65. 2026-08-20 23:05 UTCEG score recompute
  66. 2026-08-20 23:05 UTCVendor advisory
  67. 2026-08-20 22:55 UTCEPSS rescore
  68. 2026-08-20 11:16 UTCVendor advisory
  69. 2026-08-19 23:28 UTCEG score recompute
  70. 2026-08-19 23:28 UTCVendor advisory
  71. 2026-08-19 17:04 UTCEPSS rescore
  72. 2026-08-19 11:40 UTCVendor advisory
  73. 2026-08-18 23:44 UTCEG score recompute
  74. 2026-08-18 23:44 UTCVendor advisory
  75. 2026-08-18 13:48 UTCEPSS rescore

Frequently asked(5)

What is CVE-2026-59251?
CVE-2026-59251 is a high vulnerability published on July 27, 2026. Allocation of resources without limits in Erlang/OTP public_key certificate path validation allows a remote unauthenticated attacker to cause denial of service by sending a crafted X.509 certificate chain during the TLS handshake. During RFC 5280 policy processing in publickey:pkixpathvalidation/3,…
When was CVE-2026-59251 disclosed?
CVE-2026-59251 was first published in the National Vulnerability Database on July 27, 2026, with the most recent update on August 10, 2026. EchelonGraph re-ingests CVE updates from NVD on a 2-hour cycle, so this page reflects the latest published state.
Is CVE-2026-59251 actively exploited?
CVE-2026-59251 is not currently on CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. FIRST EPSS estimates a 0% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, which ranks it in the top 75.0% of all scored CVEs.
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2026-59251?
CVE-2026-59251 has a CVSS v3 base score of 7.5 (NVD).
How do I remediate CVE-2026-59251?
Patch to the fixed version published by the affected vendor. Where vendor advisories exist for CVE-2026-59251, EchelonGraph cross-links them in the Vendor Advisories panel below — those typically contain the canonical remediation steps, fixed version numbers, and any vendor-specific mitigations.

Dependency Blast Radius

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