Cyber Resilience

CVE-2022-23597

High

Published: 01 February 2022

Published
01 February 2022
Modified
05 May 2025
KEV Added
Patch
CVSS Score v3.1 8.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0042 62.2th percentile
Risk Priority 17 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2022-23597 is a high-severity Use After Free (CWE-416) vulnerability in Element Desktop. Its CVSS base score is 8.3 (High).

Operationally, ranked in the top 37.8% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability details

Element Desktop is a Matrix client for desktop platforms with Element Web at its core. Element Desktop before 1.9.7 is vulnerable to a remote program execution bug with user interaction. The exploit is non-trivial and requires clicking on a malicious…

more

link, followed by another button click. To the best of our knowledge, the vulnerability has never been exploited in the wild. If you are using Element Desktop < 1.9.7, we recommend upgrading at your earliest convenience. If successfully exploited, the vulnerability allows an attacker to specify a file path of a binary on the victim's computer which then gets executed. Notably, the attacker does *not* have the ability to specify program arguments. However, in certain unspecified configurations, the attacker may be able to specify an URI instead of a file path which then gets handled using standard platform mechanisms. These may allow exploiting further vulnerabilities in those mechanisms, potentially leading to arbitrary code execution.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.

Affected Assets

element
desktop
≤ 1.9.7

Mitigating Controls

Likely Mitigating Controls AI

Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.

addresses: CWE-416

Use-after-free exploits that achieve arbitrary code execution are blocked or significantly hardened by non-executable pages and ASLR.

References