←back to thread

198 points kimi | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.405s | source
Show context
aftbit ◴[] No.43717385[source]
As I understand it, this is talking about an SSH server built into Erlang/OTP, not e.g. OpenSSH on a server with Erlang installed.

>Any service using Erlang/OTP's SSH library for remote access such as those used in OT/IoT devices, edge computing devices are susceptible to exploitation.

https://thehackernews.com/2025/04/critical-erlangotp-ssh-vul...

replies(2): >>43717937 #>>43719581 #
rollcat ◴[] No.43719581[source]
This is why I generally do not rely on SSH servers other than OpenSSH. It's (by far) the most widely deployed implementation, thoroughly battle-tested, etc. It's also hard to actually get pwned; the OpenBSD[1] guys believe in security as the default.

There's some value in avoiding a monoculture, or choosing different trade-offs (e.g. binary size, memory usage). But as exemplified by this incident, any incentives must be carefully weighted against the risks. SSH is your final line of defence.

[1]: https://www.openbsd.org/donations.html

replies(3): >>43720311 #>>43720798 #>>43722007 #
VWWHFSfQ ◴[] No.43722007[source]
OpenSSH has actually been "pwned" numerous times though. It's a very desirable target.
replies(2): >>43724022 #>>43725818 #
throwawaymaths ◴[] No.43724022[source]
yeah and iirc erlang's ssl was one of the only ssl implementations not affected by heaetbleed since erlang is memory safe
replies(1): >>43734767 #
1. toast0 ◴[] No.43734767[source]
I'm a big fan of Erlang, but I don't think this is a fair thing to praise.

Only OpenSSL had heartbleed. No other implementation of TLS protocols was affected. Many systems integrate with OpenSSL's protocol code, but there's also several that do their own protocol work and use ciphers from OpenSSL (and some that do both).

Erlang's ssl implementation at the time of heartbleed wasn't anywhere close in throughput to using OpenSSL separately. If I'm remembering right, OTP 18 (June 2015) is when it got good enough that it made more sense to run an Erlang https server without a separate TLS termination daemon. Heartbleed became known April 2014, so Erlang SSL was too late to help there, really. More secure, but unusable wirh load doesn't help much.

Also, Erlang SSL was one of many implementations thst needed to be reminded of 1998 era security issues in 2017. [1]

[1] https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2017-1000385