Vulnerability · Published Aug 15, 2023 · Assigned by mitre
CVE-2023-38851
Medium 6.5
In plain English
A medium-severity security flaw in the r-cran-readxl package (Debian). Proof-of-concept exploit code is public. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.9% (higher than 59% of all known vulnerabilities).
Severity (CVSS NVD)6.5Medium
Exploit odds (30 days)0.9%top 40.9% of all CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo reportsCISA SSVC: poc
Attack toolingNoneno public tooling known
Official description
Buffer Overflow vulnerability in libxlsv.1.6.2 allows a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code and cause a denial of service via a crafted XLS file to the xls_parseWorkBook function in xls.c:1018.
Affected packages & fixed versions
| Ecosystem | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian:12 | r-cran-readxl | no fix listed | DEBIAN-CVE-2023-38851 |
| Debian:13 | r-cran-readxl | no fix listed | DEBIAN-CVE-2023-38851 |
| Debian:14 | r-cran-readxl | no fix listed | DEBIAN-CVE-2023-38851 |
| Ubuntu:22.04:LTS | r-cran-readxl | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2023-38851 |
| Ubuntu:24.04:LTS | r-cran-readxl | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2023-38851 |
| Ubuntu:25.10 | r-cran-readxl | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2023-38851 |
| Ubuntu:26.04:LTS | r-cran-readxl | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2023-38851 |
| Ubuntu:26.10 | r-cran-readxl | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2023-38851 |