CVE-2023-23916
An allocation of resources without limits or throttling vulnerability exists in curl <v7.88.0 based on the "chained" HTTP compression…
- Published
- Updated
- Reserved
- Assigned by
- hackerone
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.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| CISA-ADPADP (enrichment) | 3.1 | Medium6.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |
| NVDNVD · Modified | 3.1 | Medium6.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 1.7% · top 22% of all CVEs (6 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: poc · Automatable: no · Technical impact: partial
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Medium 6.5.
Weakness
Affected products
https://github.com/curl/curl
- affected Fixed in 7.88.0
References (7)
- https://hackerone.com/reports/1826048 (opens in a new tab)x_transferred
- [debian-lts-announce] 20230224 [SECURITY] [DLA 3341-1] curl security update (opens in a new tab)mailing-listx_transferred
- FEDORA-2023-94df30cbec (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_transferred
- DSA-5365 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_transferred
- https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20230309-0006/ (opens in a new tab)x_transferred
- GLSA-202310-12 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_transferred
- https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-398330.html (opens in a new tab)
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://trackcve.app/cve/CVE-2023-23916)Record last updated .