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CVE-2023-38545

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…

High8.8EPSS 78.7%
Published
Updated
Reserved
Assigned by
hackerone

Description

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.

Scores

CVSS scores of CVE-2023-38545, by who scored it
Scored byCVSSScoreVector
CISA-ADPADP (enrichment)3.1High8.8CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVDNVD · Modified3.1Critical9.8CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
78.7% · top 0.4% of all CVEs (6 Nov 2026)
CISA SSVC
Exploitation: poc · Automatable: no · Technical impact: total
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The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: High 8.8.

Weakness

Affected products

  • curl · curl

    • affected 8.4.0 – < 8.4.0
    • unaffected 7.69.0 – < 7.69.0

References (21)

Sources

The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.

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Record last updated .