Cyber Resilience

CVE-2023-26157

Memory Safety in Gnu Libredwg ≤ 0.12.5.6384

Published
02 January 2024
Modified
21 November 2024
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 5.5
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0054 43th percentile
Risk Priority 44 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2023-26157 is a medium-severity Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (CWE-400) vulnerability in Gnu Libredwg. Its CVSS base score is 5.5 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique OS Exhaustion Flood (T1499.001); ranked at the 43th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SC-5 (Denial-of-service Protection) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Versions of the package libredwg before 0.12.5.6384 are vulnerable to Denial of Service (DoS) due to an out-of-bounds read involving section->num_pages in decode_r2007.c.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1499.001 OS Exhaustion Flood Impact
Adversaries may launch a denial of service (DoS) attack targeting an endpoint's operating system (OS).
T1498 Network Denial of Service Impact
Adversaries may perform Network Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to degrade or block the availability of targeted resources to users.
T1499 Endpoint Denial of Service Impact
Adversaries may perform Endpoint Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to degrade or block the availability of services to users.
T1499.002 Service Exhaustion Flood Impact
Adversaries may target the different network services provided by systems to conduct a denial of service (DoS).
T1499.003 Application Exhaustion Flood Impact
Adversaries may target resource intensive features of applications to cause a denial of service (DoS), denying availability to those applications.
T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2025-48188Same vendor: Gnu
CVE-2023-27371Same vendor: Gnu
CVE-2026-58469Same vendor: Gnu
CVE-2025-47816Same vendor: Gnu
CVE-2026-4437Same vendor: Gnu
CVE-2023-25584Same vendor: Gnu
CVE-2025-11414Same vendor: Gnu
CVE-2025-11840Same vendor: Gnu
CVE-2025-11494Same vendor: Gnu
CVE-2025-11081Same vendor: Gnu

Affected Assets

gnu
libredwg
≤ 0.12.5.6384

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Developer testing and evaluation directly finds out-of-bounds read flaws through static analysis, fuzzing, and dynamic bounds checks.

SC-5 directly limits the effects of resource-exhaustion events that constitute uncontrolled consumption.

SC-6 enforces explicit allocation limits on resources, structurally preventing the weakness from occurring.

Secure engineering principles require bounds checking and memory-safe constructs that stop out-of-bounds reads from being introduced.

Process isolation confines resource consumption to separate domains, reducing blast radius without stopping the root flaw.

Input validation rejects malformed indices or lengths that would otherwise cause reads outside buffer bounds.

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.IR-04 mostly match
prevents

Explicitly requires monitoring and maintaining resource capacity, directly addressing uncontrolled consumption to preserve availability.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

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

DE.CM-09 partial match
prevents

Continuous monitoring of computing resources can detect resource exhaustion but does not itself enforce allocation limits.

ID.RA-01 partial match
prevents

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

PR.IR-03 partial match
prevents

Resilience mechanisms such as avoiding single points of failure indirectly reduce impact of resource exhaustion.

PR.PS-01 partial match
prevents

Hardened configuration baselines can include resource quotas and limits that constrain consumption.

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.

finds

Resource-utilization monitoring and alerting on bottlenecks or overloads limits the impact of denial-of-service or resource-exhaustion attacks.

finds

Security testing in development and acceptance includes fuzzing and static analysis that detect out-of-bounds read defects before release.

prevents

By continuously monitoring utilization, stress-testing peak loads, and maintaining documented plans to scale or throttle resources, the control directly limits an attacker’s ability to drive a system into uncontrolled resource exhaustion.

finds

Pre-agreed severity-based prioritization and resource allocation during incident triage reduce the likelihood that an attacker-induced resource exhaustion will overwhelm the organization before corrective action is taken.

mitigates

Business-continuity plans that include resource-management controls reduce the likelihood that an attacker can trigger uncontrolled resource consumption by forcing the system into a degraded or fallback state.

mitigates

Defining RTOs and capacity requirements for ICT services during business-impact analysis forces organizations to provision sufficient resources and throttling mechanisms, reducing the likelihood that an attacker can induce denial-of-service through uncontrolled resource consumption.

References