CVE-2026-42792 Details
Improper Handling of Exceptional Conditions vulnerability in Erlang OTP erts (epmd) allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to permanently terminate the Erlang Port Mapper Daemon (epmd) via connection slot exhaustion.

The do_accept function in erts/epmd/src/epmd_srv.c calls epmd_cleanup_exit() when accept(2) returns EMFILE (per-process file descriptor limit reached) or ENFILE (system-wide file descriptor limit reached), rather than treating these as recoverable conditions. An attacker can exhaust epmd's file descriptor slots by holding many TCP connections open while periodically sending a single byte to reset the idle timeout, then causing accept(2) to return EMFILE, which kills the daemon. epmd has no per-source-IP connection cap, making the attack feasible from a single source.

On Debian/Ubuntu default packaging the impact is amplified: the systemd unit inherits a low file descriptor soft limit, and repeated daemon deaths trigger systemd's start-rate-limit, permanently failing both epmd.service and epmd.socket and requiring manual operator intervention to recover.

This issue affects OTP from OTP 17.0 before OTP 27.3.4.15, 28.5.0.4, and 29.0.4.
View at NVD
Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2026-42792
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System): EPSS predicts the likelihood that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild. A higher percentage means a greater chance of an exploit occurring. The EPSS model produces a probability score between 0 and 1 (0 and 100%).
0.43 Probability of exploitation activity being observed over the next 30 days (36th percentile)
CVSS score for CVE-2026-42792
CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System): An open framework owned and managed by FIRST.Org, Inc. that assigns a numerical score from 0 to 10 to software vulnerabilities to indicate their severity.
7.5 High
Products affected by CVE-2026-42792
Erlang\/otp 27.1.2
DVE Score by Bitsight AI
DVE scores complement traditional static scoring systems like CVSS with Bitsight AI powered real-time threat intelligence and underground cyber criminal activity so that security teams can reduce alert fatigue and focus on vulnerabilities most likely to be exploited.
Low
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CVE-2026-42792 Global Footprint

Top 10 Identified Countries

Country Observations Percentage
FR 25 67.57%
US 5 13.51%
GB 3 8.11%
DE 1 2.70%
IL 1 2.70%
QA 1 2.70%
SG 1 2.70%

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CVE-2026-42792 Industry Footprint

Top 10 Identified Industries

*Service provider organizations (typically Technology and Telecommunications) are disproportionally represented in the results given their upstream ownership of end-user infrastructure. See our FAQs.

Industry* Observations Percentage
Technology 36 100.00%

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