8.7
HIGH CVSS 4.0
CVE-2026-55950
DTLS listener crash via race condition in dtls_packet_demux causes denial of service for all sessions
Description

Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) race condition vulnerability in Erlang/OTP ssl (dtls_packet_demux module) allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to crash all active DTLS sessions on a listener. A DTLS server listener uses a single shared dtls_packet_demux gen_server process to route incoming UDP datagrams to the correct connection handler. When a DTLS client reconnects rapidly from the same source address and port (sending multiple ClientHello messages in quick succession), a race condition in the demux's internal gb_trees key-value store causes a {key_exists, {old, Client}} crash, terminating the demux process. Because the demux is shared across all DTLS associations on that listener, its crash immediately kills every active DTLS session, not just the attacker's. The attack is pre-authentication: the attacker only needs to send UDP datagrams containing valid ClientHello messages from the same source IP and port before the intermediate DOWN monitor message is processed by the gen_server. No credentials, no completed handshake, and no special configuration are required, and the crash can be repeated indefinitely to create a persistent denial of service for all clients of that listener. This vulnerability is associated with program file lib/ssl/src/dtls_packet_demux.erl. This issue affects OTP from OTP 25.3 before 29.0.3, 28.5.0.3, and 27.3.4.14 corresponding to ssl from 10.9 before 11.7.3, 11.6.0.3, and 11.2.12.10.

INFO

Published Date :

July 2, 2026, 4:06 p.m.

Last Modified :

July 2, 2026, 4:06 p.m.

Remotely Exploit :

Yes !

Source :

EEF
Affected Products

The following products are affected by CVE-2026-55950 vulnerability. Even if cvefeed.io is aware of the exact versions of the products that are affected, the information is not represented in the table below.

ID Vendor Product Action
1 Erlang otp
CVSS Scores
The Common Vulnerability Scoring System is a standardized framework for assessing the severity of vulnerabilities in software and systems. We collect and displays CVSS scores from various sources for each CVE.
Score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Score Impact Score Source
CVSS 4.0 HIGH 6b3ad84c-e1a6-4bf7-a703-f496b71e49db
Solution
Update Erlang/OTP and related SSL components to fix a race condition causing denial of service.
  • Update Erlang/OTP to a version that includes the fix.
  • Update ssl component to a fixed version.
  • Deploy the updated software.

We scan GitHub repositories to detect new proof-of-concept exploits. Following list is a collection of public exploits and proof-of-concepts, which have been published on GitHub (sorted by the most recently updated).

Results are limited to the first 15 repositories due to potential performance issues.

The following list is the news that have been mention CVE-2026-55950 vulnerability anywhere in the article.

EPSS is a daily estimate of the probability of exploitation activity being observed over the next 30 days. Following chart shows the EPSS score history of the vulnerability.