Vulnerability · Published Feb 23, 2023 · Assigned by hackerone
CVE-2023-23916
Medium 6.5
In plain English
A medium-severity resource allocation without limits in https://github.com/curl/curl. Proof-of-concept exploit code is public. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 1.7% (higher than 78% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.
Official description
An allocation of resources without limits or throttling vulnerability exists in curl <v7.88.0 based on the "chained" HTTP compression algorithms, meaning that a server response can be compressed multiple times and potentially with differentalgorithms. The number of acceptable "links" in this "decompression chain" wascapped, but the cap was implemented on a per-header basis allowing a maliciousserver to insert a virtually unlimited number of compression steps simply byusing many headers. The use of such a decompression chain could result in a "malloc bomb", making curl end up spending enormous amounts of allocated heap memory, or trying to and returning out of memory errors.
Affected packages & fixed versions
| Ecosystem | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| AlmaLinux:8 | curl | 7.61.1-25.el8_7.3 | ALSA-2023:1140 |
| AlmaLinux:9 | curl | 7.76.1-19.el9_1.2 | ALSA-2023:1701 |
| AlmaLinux:9 | curl-minimal | 7.76.1-19.el9_1.2 | ALSA-2023:1701 |
| AlmaLinux:8 | libcurl | 7.61.1-25.el8_7.3 | ALSA-2023:1140 |
| AlmaLinux:9 | libcurl | 7.76.1-19.el9_1.2 | ALSA-2023:1701 |
| AlmaLinux:8 | libcurl-devel | 7.61.1-25.el8_7.3 | ALSA-2023:1140 |
| AlmaLinux:9 | libcurl-devel | 7.76.1-19.el9_1.2 | ALSA-2023:1701 |
| AlmaLinux:8 | libcurl-minimal | 7.61.1-25.el8_7.3 | ALSA-2023:1140 |
| AlmaLinux:9 | libcurl-minimal | 7.76.1-19.el9_1.2 | ALSA-2023:1701 |
| Alpine:v3.20 | curl | 7.88.0-r0 | ALPINE-CVE-2023-23916 |
| Alpine:v3.21 | curl | 7.88.0-r0 | ALPINE-CVE-2023-23916 |
| Alpine:v3.22 | curl | 7.88.0-r0 | ALPINE-CVE-2023-23916 |
| Alpine:v3.23 | curl | 7.88.0-r0 | ALPINE-CVE-2023-23916 |
| Alpine:v3.24 | curl | 7.88.0-r0 | ALPINE-CVE-2023-23916 |
| Debian:12 | curl | 7.88.1-1 | DEBIAN-CVE-2023-23916 |
| Debian:13 | curl | 7.88.1-1 | DEBIAN-CVE-2023-23916 |
| Debian:14 | curl | 7.88.1-1 | DEBIAN-CVE-2023-23916 |
| Rocky Linux:8 | curl | 0:7.61.1-25.el8_7.3 | RLSA-2023:1140 |
| Ubuntu:22.04:LTS | curl | 7.81.0-1ubuntu1.8 | UBUNTU-CVE-2023-23916 |
| Ubuntu:22.04:LTS | curl | 7.81.0-1ubuntu1.8 | USN-5891-1 |
Affected products (as reported)
| Vendor | Product | Versions |
|---|---|---|
| n/a | https://github.com/curl/curl | Fixed in 7.88.0 |
Weakness: CWE-770 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
References
- https://hackerone.com/reports/1826048
- [debian-lts-announce] 20230224 [SECURITY] [DLA 3341-1] curl security update mailing-list
- FEDORA-2023-94df30cbec vendor-advisory
- DSA-5365 vendor-advisory
- https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20230309-0006/
- GLSA-202310-12 vendor-advisory
- https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-398330.html