Security Resilience

CVE-2023-23502

Memory Safety in Apple Macos 12.0.0 – 12.6.3

Memory Safety
Published
27 February 2023
Modified
12 March 2025
Patch / advisory
View advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 5.5
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
EPSS Score 0.0024 14th percentile
Risk Priority 42 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-2023-23502 is a medium-severity Out-of-bounds Read (CWE-125) vulnerability in Apple Macos. Its CVSS base score is 5.5 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Data Obfuscation (T1001); ranked at the 14th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

An information disclosure issue was addressed by removing the vulnerable code. This issue is fixed in macOS Monterey 12.6.3, macOS Ventura 13.2, iOS 16.3 and iPadOS 16.3, tvOS 16.3, watchOS 9.3. An app may be able to determine kernel memory…

more

layout.

CWE(s)
NVD-CWE-noinfoCWE-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-2023-32372Same product: Apple Ipados
CVE-2023-32389Same product: Apple Ipados
CVE-2023-27929Same product: Apple Ipados
CVE-2023-32403Same product: Apple Ipados
CVE-2026-43655Same product: Apple Ipados
CVE-2023-32357Same product: Apple Ipados
CVE-2023-40410Same product: Apple Ipados
CVE-2023-42862Same product: Apple Ipados
CVE-2024-54518Same product: Apple Ipados
CVE-2023-42865Same product: Apple Ipados

Affected Assets

apple
ipados
≤ 16.3
apple
iphone os
≤ 16.3
apple
macos
12.0.0 — 12.6.3 · 13.0 — 13.2
apple
tvos
≤ 16.3
apple
watchos
≤ 9.3

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