CVE-2023-38545

high-risk
Published 2023-10-18

This flaw makes curl overflow a heap based buffer in the SOCKS5 proxy handshake. When curl is asked to pass along the host name to the SOCKS5 proxy to allow that to resolve the address instead of it getting done by curl itself, the maximum length that host name can be is 255 bytes. If the host name is detected to be longer, curl switches to local name resolving and instead passes on the resolved address only. Due to this bug, the local variable that means "let the host resolve the name" could get the wrong value during a slow SOCKS5 handshake, and contrary to the intention, copy the too long host name to the target buffer instead of copying just the resolved address there. The target buffer being a heap based buffer, and the host name coming from the URL that curl has been told to operate with.

Do I need to act?

!
26.2% chance of exploitation in next 30 days
EPSS score — higher than 74% of all CVEs
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Not on CISA KEV list
No confirmed active exploitation reported to CISA
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Patch status unknown
Check vendor advisories for fix availability and mitigation guidance
9
CVSS 9.8/10 Critical
NETWORK / LOW complexity

Affected Vendors

65
/ 100
high-risk
Severity 32/34 · Critical
Exploitability 15/34 · Moderate
Exposure 18/34 · Moderate