Cyber Resilience

CVE-2023-21701

High

Published: 14 February 2023

Published
14 February 2023
Modified
21 November 2024
KEV Added
Patch
CVSS Score v3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0626 91.1th percentile
Risk Priority 19 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2023-21701 is a high-severity Buffer Over-read (CWE-126) vulnerability in Microsoft Windows Server 2008. Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).

Operationally, ranked in the top 8.9% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

Deeper analysis

Microsoft Protected Extensible Authentication Protocol (PEAP) contains a denial-of-service vulnerability tracked as CVE-2023-21701. The flaw is present in the PEAP implementation used for network authentication and carries a CVSS 3.1 score of 7.5, reflecting a network-accessible vector with low attack complexity and no required credentials or user interaction. The associated weakness identifiers include CWE-126.

An unauthenticated remote attacker can send specially crafted network traffic to a vulnerable PEAP endpoint, resulting in a high-impact denial of service that disrupts availability while leaving confidentiality and integrity unaffected.

Microsoft has published an advisory at https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2023-21701 that addresses the issue. The current EPSS score of 0.0626 with a recorded peak of 0.0695 indicates only modest exploitation interest since disclosure.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability details

Microsoft Protected Extensible Authentication Protocol (PEAP) Denial of Service Vulnerability

CWE(s)

Related Threats

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

Affected Assets

microsoft
windows 10
≤ 10.0.10240.19747
microsoft
windows 10 1607
≤ 10.0.14393.5717
microsoft
windows 10 1809
≤ 10.0.17763.4010
microsoft
windows 10 20h2
≤ 10.0.19042.2604
microsoft
windows 10 21h2
≤ 10.0.19044.2604
microsoft
windows 10 22h2
≤ 10.0.19045.2604
microsoft
windows 11 21h2
≤ 10.0.22000.1574
microsoft
windows 11 22h2
≤ 10.0.22621.1265
microsoft
windows server 2008
all versions, r2
microsoft
windows server 2012
all versions, r2
+3 more product configuration(s) — see NVD for full list

Mitigating Controls

No mitigating controls mapped yet. The per-CVE control annotator has not reached this CVE.

References