Executive brief
Erlang OTP is a popular development platform used to build highly scalable and available distributed systems. A technical flaw in one of its interface libraries could allow a local attacker to crash applications that process specially crafted data. While this issue primarily causes a service outage (Denial of Service), it does not appear to allow for the theft of sensitive data or unauthorized system control.
Technical details
A stack-based buffer overflow exists in the 'ei_s_print_term' function within 'lib/erl_interface/src/misc/ei_printterm.c'. The function utilizes a fixed 2000-character internal stack buffer to format Erlang terms. When processing an encoded Erlang term containing a very large integer (where the hexadecimal representation exceeds 2000 characters), the buffer overflows. Exploitation is primarily limited to Denial of Service (DoS) because the overflowing bytes are restricted to ASCII values (0-9 and A-F). The vulnerability affects OTP versions from 17.0 up to various patched releases in the 27, 28, and 29 branches. Users are advised to update to versions 27.3.4.13, 28.5.0.2, or 29.0.2.
Affected products
- Erlang OTP 17.0 before 27.3.4.13, 28.5.0.2, 29.0.2
- Erlang erl_interface 3.7.16 before 5.5.2.1, 5.7.0.1, 5.8.1
Timeline
- 2026-06-10: disclosed
- 2026-06-10: advisory
- 2026-06-10: patched