{"affected":[{"ranges":[{"events":[{"introduced":"24ef4cbaeda9b9c26682cba75f2f15b0c58722aa"},{"fixed":"dc1bf9344c0ce62717cf60866590cea0242780fd"}],"repo":"https://github.com/erlang/otp","type":"GIT"}]}],"aliases":["GHSA-54pw-5645-jh86","CVE-2026-54890"],"credits":[{"name":"Paul Guyot","type":"FINDER"},{"name":"Lukas Backström","type":"FINDER"},{"name":"John Högberg","type":"REMEDIATION_DEVELOPER"}],"database_specific":{"capec_ids":["CAPEC-92","CAPEC-130"],"cpe_ids":["cpe:2.3:a:erlang:erlang\\/otp:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*"],"cwe_ids":["CWE-191","CWE-789","CWE-1284"]},"details":"## Summary\n\nInteger Underflow (Wrap or Wraparound) vulnerability in erlang otp erlang/otp (erts modules), erlang otp erts (erts modules) allows Forced Integer Overflow, Excessive Allocation. This vulnerability is associated with program files erts/emulator/beam/external.c, emulator/beam/external.c.\n\nThe BIT\\_BINARY\\_EXT tag (77) handler in the External Term Format (ETF) decoder accepts an encoding with both length and trailing-bits fields set to zero. The subsequent computation of the bitstring size underflows an unsigned integer, producing a value of roughly 2^64 that is then passed as a memory allocation size. The allocator aborts the entire node with a message such as \"Cannot allocate 2305843009213693951 bytes of memory (of type binary)\".\n\nThe crash is a VM-level abort, not an Erlang-level exception. It cannot be intercepted by supervision trees, by try/catch, or by passing the \\[safe\\] option to binary\\_to\\_term/2 (which only restricts atom creation and does not perform structural validation of binary encodings).\n\nAny application that decodes ETF from untrusted sources via binary\\_to\\_term/1,2 or enif\\_binary\\_to\\_term() is exposed. The Erlang distribution protocol also decodes incoming terms through the same code path, but distribution is expected to run on trusted networks per the OTP Secure Coding Guidelines (DSG-011).\n\nThis issue affects OTP from OTP 27.0 before OTP 29.0.4, OTP 28.5.0.4 and OTP 27.3.4.15, corresponding to erts from 15.0 before 17.0.4, 16.4.0.4 and 15.2.7.11.\n\n## Workaround\n\nDo not call binary\\_to\\_term/1,2 or enif\\_binary\\_to\\_term() on data from untrusted sources. The OTP Secure Coding Guidelines (DSG-011) recommend avoiding these functions altogether on untrusted input and using an alternative serialization format (for example JSON or Protocol Buffers) instead.","id":"EEF-CVE-2026-54890","modified":"2026-07-27T16:11:16.679Z","published":"2026-07-27T15:39:03.475Z","references":[{"type":"ADVISORY","url":"https://github.com/erlang/otp/security/advisories/GHSA-54pw-5645-jh86"},{"type":"WEB","url":"https://cna.erlef.org/cves/CVE-2026-54890.html"},{"type":"WEB","url":"https://www.erlang.org/doc/system/versions.html#order-of-versions"},{"type":"FIX","url":"https://github.com/erlang/otp/commit/dc1bf9344c0ce62717cf60866590cea0242780fd"}],"related":[],"schema_version":"1.7.3","severity":[{"score":"CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N","type":"CVSS_V4"}],"summary":"BEAM VM crash via integer underflow in binary_to_term BIT_BINARY_EXT decoding","upstream":[]}