Security Resilience

CVE-2023-24538

RCE in Golang Go ≤ 1.19.8

Published
06 April 2023
Modified
12 February 2025
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 9.8
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.023 83th percentile
Risk Priority 75 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-2023-24538 is a critical-severity Code Injection (CWE-94) vulnerability in Golang Go. Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Junk Data (T1001.001); ranked in the top 17% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Templates do not properly consider backticks (`) as Javascript string delimiters, and do not escape them as expected. Backticks are used, since ES6, for JS template literals. If a template contains a Go template action within a Javascript template literal,…

more

the contents of the action can be used to terminate the literal, injecting arbitrary Javascript code into the Go template. As ES6 template literals are rather complex, and themselves can do string interpolation, the decision was made to simply disallow Go template actions from being used inside of them (e.g. "var a = {{.}}"), since there is no obviously safe way to allow this behavior. This takes the same approach as github.com/google/safehtml. With fix, Template.Parse returns an Error when it encounters templates like this, with an ErrorCode of value 12. This ErrorCode is currently unexported, but will be exported in the release of Go 1.21. Users who rely on the previous behavior can re-enable it using the GODEBUG flag jstmpllitinterp=1, with the caveat that backticks will now be escaped. This should be used with caution.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1001.001 Junk Data Command And Control
Adversaries may add junk data to protocols used for command and control to make detection more difficult.
T1001.003 Protocol or Service Impersonation Command And Control
Adversaries may impersonate legitimate protocols or web service traffic to disguise command and control activity and thwart analysis efforts.
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…
T1003.007 Proc Filesystem Credential Access
Adversaries may gather credentials from the proc filesystem or `/proc`.
T1003.008 /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to dump the contents of <code>/etc/passwd</code> and <code>/etc/shadow</code> to enable offline password cracking.
T1007 System Service Discovery Discovery
Adversaries may try to gather information about registered local system services.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2023-39320Same product: Golang Go
CVE-2025-61732Same product: Golang Go
CVE-2023-24539Same product: Golang Go
CVE-2023-29400Same product: Golang Go
CVE-2023-29404Same product: Golang Go
CVE-2023-29402Same product: Golang Go
CVE-2025-0060Shared CWE-94
CVE-2019-0193Shared CWE-94
CVE-2024-6936Shared CWE-94
CVE-2024-55504Shared CWE-94

Affected Assets

golang
go
≤ 1.19.8 · 1.20.0 — 1.20.3

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

—

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

—

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

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Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V1.3.1

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-94

Makes persistent code injection into loaded programs impossible when the executable image itself resides on hardware-protected read-only media.

addresses: CWE-94

Dynamically generated code can be produced and executed inside the isolated chamber, preventing host compromise from code-injection payloads.

addresses: CWE-94

Validates inputs used in dynamic code generation to block injected directives.

addresses: CWE-94

Directly prevents execution of attacker-supplied code written into data memory regions.

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.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
blocks

PR.PS-06's SDLC practices directly target injection flaws via secure coding and testing (mostly), yet as a single broad outcome it leaves many code-generation specifics unaddressed (partial).

PR.DS-10 none match
blocks

PR.DS-10 protects runtime data confidentiality/integrity but has no bearing on neutralizing externally influenced input during code generation, so neither direction shows any preventive effect.

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.

removes
removes
removes
removes
removes

References