Security Resilience

CVE-2023-1255

Memory Safety in Openssl 3.0.0 – 3.0.9

Memory Safety
Published
20 April 2023
Modified
04 February 2025
Patch / advisory
View advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 5.9
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0095 61th percentile
Risk Priority 48 floored blend · peak EPSS

CVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.

Summary

CVE-2023-1255 is a medium-severity Out-of-bounds Read (CWE-125) vulnerability in Openssl Openssl. Its CVSS base score is 5.9 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Data Obfuscation (T1001); ranked in the top 39% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Issue summary: The AES-XTS cipher decryption implementation for 64 bit ARM platform contains a bug that could cause it to read past the input buffer, leading to a crash. Impact summary: Applications that use the AES-XTS algorithm on the 64…

more

bit ARM platform can crash in rare circumstances. The AES-XTS algorithm is usually used for disk encryption. The AES-XTS cipher decryption implementation for 64 bit ARM platform will read past the end of the ciphertext buffer if the ciphertext size is 4 mod 5 in 16 byte blocks, e.g. 144 bytes or 1024 bytes. If the memory after the ciphertext buffer is unmapped, this will trigger a crash which results in a denial of service. If an attacker can control the size and location of the ciphertext buffer being decrypted by an application using AES-XTS on 64 bit ARM, the application is affected. This is fairly unlikely making this issue a Low severity one.

CWE(s)
CWE-125

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1001 Data Obfuscation Command And Control
Adversaries may obfuscate command and control traffic to make it more difficult to detect.
attack.mitre.org →
T1001.002 Steganography Command And Control
Adversaries may use steganographic techniques to hide command and control traffic to make detection efforts more difficult.
attack.mitre.org →
T1003.002 Security Account Manager Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to extract credential material from the Security Account Manager (SAM) database either through in-memory techniques or through the Windows Registry where the SAM database is stored.
attack.mitre.org →
T1003.003 NTDS Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to access or create a copy of the Active Directory domain database in order to steal credential information, as well as obtain other information about domain members such as devices, users, and access rights.
attack.mitre.org →
T1003.004 LSA Secrets Credential Access
Adversaries with SYSTEM access to a host may attempt to access Local Security Authority (LSA) secrets, which can contain a variety of different credential materials, such as credentials for service accounts.
attack.mitre.org →
T1003.006 DCSync Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to access credentials and other sensitive information by abusing a Windows Domain Controller's application programming interface (API)(Citation: Microsoft DRSR Dec 2017) (Citation: Microsoft GetNCCChanges) (Citati…
attack.mitre.org →
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2026-42771Same product: Openssl Openssl
CVE-2026-9076Same product: Openssl Openssl
CVE-2026-28386Same product: Openssl Openssl
CVE-2026-34180Same product: Openssl Openssl
CVE-2026-84782Same product: Openssl Openssl
CVE-2014-0160Same product: Openssl Openssl
CVE-2025-48822Shared CWE-125
CVE-2023-42063Shared CWE-125
CVE-2025-21905Shared CWE-125
CVE-2026-43048Shared CWE-125

Affected Assets

openssl
openssl
3.0.0 — 3.0.9 · 3.1.0 — 3.1.1

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

ID.RA-01 partial match
blocks

Vulnerability scanning and recording can discover instances of out-of-bounds reads after code is deployed.

PR.PS-02 partial match
blocks

Routine patching replaces vulnerable code containing out-of-bounds read flaws.

PR.PS-06 partial match
blocks

Secure-development practices such as bounds checking and memory-safe languages directly prevent out-of-bounds reads.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

A.5.14 Information transfer partial match
removes
A.5.15 Access control partial match
removes
A.5.16 Identity management partial match
removes
A.5.17 Authentication information partial match
removes
A.5.18 Access rights partial match
removes
A.8.10 Information deletion partial match
removes

References