Am I affected?

This record states its affected versions in a form that can't be compared automatically.

13.0 and up affected
17.0.4 not affected
16.4.0.4 not affected
15.2.7.11 not affected
every other version: unaffected

Description

Signed to Unsigned Conversion Error and Out-of-bounds Write vulnerability in Erlang OTP erts allows an attacker who can supply a crafted Erlang external term format (ETF) binary to binary_to_term/1 to corrupt the BEAM heap pointer and crash the virtual machine.

When decoding a LARGE_TUPLE_EXT term, the validation pass decoded_size() in erts/emulator/beam/external.c reads the 32-bit arity field as unsigned (get_uint32()), while the decode pass dec_term() reads the same field as a signed 32-bit integer (get_int32()) into an int. An arity wire value of 0x80000000 passes validation as 2147483648 but decodes as -2147483648, so the subsequent hp += n moves the heap allocation pointer backward. Neither pass enforces the runtime tuple-arity limit MAX_ARITYVAL. The result is an out-of-bounds heap write; in practice the VM detects an impossible heap size and aborts, denying service. The required padding is large when uncompressed but the compressed-ETF envelope shrinks it to a small payload on the wire.

This issue affects OTP from OTP 25.0 before OTP 29.0.4, OTP 28.5.0.4 and OTP 27.3.4.15, corresponding to erts from 13.0 before 17.0.4, 16.4.0.4 and 15.2.7.11.

Weaknesses & attack patterns

Weakness

CWE-195 · Signed to Unsigned Conversion Error in catalog → MITRE ↗
CWE-787 · Out-of-bounds Write in catalog → MITRE ↗

Attack patterns

CAPEC-92 · Forced Integer Overflow MITRE ↗

Affected — Erlang / erts Repository ↗

13.0 and up affected
17.0.4 not affected
16.4.0.4 not affected
15.2.7.11 not affected
every other version: unaffected
default status unaffected
cpe cpe:2.3:a:erlang:erlang/otp:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
modules · source files · routines
modules erlang · external
source files emulator/beam/external.c
routines erlang:binary_to_term/1 · erlang:binary_to_term/2 · dec_term · decoded_size

Affected — GitHub / erlang/otp Repository ↗

25.0 and up affected
29.0.4 not affected
28.5.0.4 not affected
27.3.4.15 not affected
ebcbb97 < c5210b4 affected
every other version: unaffected
default status unaffected
cpe cpe:2.3:a:erlang:erlang/otp:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
modules · source files · routines
modules erlang · external
source files erts/emulator/beam/external.c
routines erlang:binary_to_term/1 · erlang:binary_to_term/2 · dec_term · decoded_size

References

Credits

Nick Gunn Finder
Kiko Fernandez-Reyes Remediation developer
Sverker Eriksson Remediation reviewer

CVSS breakdown

CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
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