Answer in brief
CVE-2026-59251 records a High severity (CVSS 8.7) vulnerability in Denial of service via exponential certificate policy tree growth in path validation. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. The current feed maps Erlang/erlang/otp (generic), Erlang/OTP (generic), Erlang/OTP (generic). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.
Analysis pending evidence review
HOL Guard separates source facts from reviewed analysis. See the methodology.
CVSS is 8.7. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. Treat this as a source-backed prioritization signal, not a statement about your environment.
Analysis status
Analysis pending evidence review
Factual feed record only; HOL analysis is not approved for indexing. Read the methodology.
The current feed maps Erlang/erlang/otp (generic), Erlang/OTP (generic), Erlang/OTP (generic). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.
| Product | Affected versions | Fixed versions |
|---|---|---|
| cpe:2.3:a:erlang:erlang\/otp:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* | Not reported | Not reported |
| cpe:2.3:a:erlang:erlang\/public_key:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* | Not reported | Not reported |
| Package | Affected range | Fixed version |
|---|---|---|
| Erlang/erlang/otpgeneric | >=9d1dda7bad5a64b58c10a1554751689e94131a73 <* | * |
| Erlang/OTPgeneric | >=26.2 <* | * |
| Erlang/OTPgeneric | >=1.15 <* | * |
Published upstream
Jul 27, 2026
Evidence: source:cvelist:source_dates:source-dates:recordSource modified
Nov 11, 2026
Evidence: source:cvelist:source_dates:source-dates:recordFirst seen by HOL
Aug 10, 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 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 27.3.4.15, OTP 28.5.0.4, and OTP 29.0.4, corresponding to public_key from 1.15 before 1.17.1.5, 1.20.3.4, and 1.21.4.
Quoted source text, attributed separately from HOL analysis.