The flaw in OpenSSH's authentication handling allows a remote attacker to trigger a DoS by flooding the server with GSSAPI authentication attempts. Because the MaxAuthTries counter is not correctly applied to GSSAPI authentication, each attempt consumes resources until the connection is closed, exhausting CPU and memory on the host. The weakness is a resource‑exhaustion flaw (CWE‑770) that can degrade service availability. The CVSS score of 3.7 indicates low severity, and the EPSS score of less than 1% suggests a low probability of widespread exploitation at present. The likely attack vector is remote network traffic to the SSH port, as the vulnerability can be triggered by GSSAPI authentication attempts sent over the network. While it does not compromise confidentiality or integrity, it can particularly affect high‑traffic or resource‑constrained servers. Since the vulnerability is not listed in KEV, there are no known active exploitation campaigns in the wild.

OpenBSD OpenSSH versions prior to 10.4 are vulnerable. Systems running any earlier OpenSSH release expose a denial‑of‑service path to remote hosts that can authenticate using GSSAPI.

OpenSSH's authentication loop does not correctly decrement MaxAuthTries for GSSAPI requests, allowing a remote host to repeatedly attempt authentication. Each failed attempt consumes CPU and memory until the SSH session ends. The CVSS score of 3.7 reflects the low impact to confidentiality and integrity. Because the vulnerability is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog, no known active exploit campaigns have been documented. The EPSS score of < 1% indicates a low probability of exploitation. The attack path requires only network connectivity to send GSSAPI authentication attempts; no privileged credentials are needed.