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CVE-2026-54886

Uncontrolled Resource Consumption: is CVE-2026-54886real, exploitable, or a false positive? Here's the community verdict.

signals

public sources

Exploited in wild
Not listed
CISA KEV
Public exploit
None known
Metasploit/EDB/PoC
Base severity
4.3 Medium
CVSS
Exploitation prob.
0.3%
FIRST EPSS
Weakness
CWE-400 · Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
CWE

Moderate signals. Triage by your actual exposure and reachability.

baseline read

auto · not a community verdict

Low signal — verdict needed

Few public signals point to active risk. Whether a scanner hit here is a true or false positive depends on your version and config — community verdicts decide.

Based on CVSS · FIRST EPSS

Confirm or dispute →

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition ('Infinite Loop') vulnerability in Erlang OTP ssh (ssh_sftpd module) allows an authenticated SFTP user to render an SFTP channel permanently unresponsive. The handle_data/4 function in ssh_sftpd contains a catch-all clause that accepts channel data of any type. When channel data with a non-zero type code (SSH_MSG_CHANNEL_EXTENDED_DATA) arrives with an empty pending buffer and a payload at or below the SFTP packet size limit, the clause tail-calls itself with identical arguments, creating an infinite loop. The SFTP protocol operates exclusively on normal channel data (type 0). Extended data (non-zero type) is meaningless for SFTP and is never sent by conforming clients. However, the SSH protocol permits any channel participant to send extended data on an open channel, so an authenticated SFTP client can trigger the loop by sending SSH_MSG_CHANNEL_EXTENDED_DATA with any data_type_code and any non-empty payload at or below the size limit. The targeted ssh_sftpd process enters an infinite tail-recursive loop. It never processes another message, its message queue grows without bound, and it can only be stopped by killing the process. BEAM's reduction-based scheduler preemption continues to function, so other processes on the node are not starved, but each stuck channel process consumes its full CPU time share continuously and accumulates unbounded message queue memory. Opening many channels amplifies the CPU and memory impact. Erlang/OTP SSH configurations using the default max_channels setting (infinity) allow an authenticated user to open unlimited channels per connection, amplifying the attack without requiring multiple TCP connections or authentications. No file contents, credentials, or write access are obtainable through this issue. The impact is limited to denial of service on targeted SFTP channels, with secondary CPU degradation and memory growth. This vulnerability is associated with program file lib/ssh/src/ssh_sftpd.erl and program routine ssh_sftpd:handle_data/4. This issue affects OTP from OTP 17.0 until OTP 29.0.3, 28.5.0.3, and 27.3.4.14 corresponding to ssh from 3.0.1 until 6.0.2, 5.5.2.2, and 5.2.11.9.

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    Same weakness: CWE-400 · Uncontrolled Resource Consumption.