Cyber Resilience

CVE-2023-3040

Memory Safety in Cloudflare Lua-Resty-Json ≤ 2023-05-05

Published
14 June 2023
Modified
21 November 2024
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 3.7
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:L
EPSS Score 0.0071 50th percentile
Risk Priority 34 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2023-3040 is a low-severity Out-of-bounds Read (CWE-125) vulnerability in Cloudflare Lua-Resty-Json. Its CVSS base score is 3.7 (Low).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked in the top 50% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

A debug function in the lua-resty-json package, up to commit id 3ef9492bd3a44d9e51301d6adc3cd1789c8f534a (merged in PR #14) contained an out of bounds access bug that could have allowed an attacker to launch a DoS if the function was used to parse…

more

untrusted input data. It is important to note that because this debug function was only used in tests and demos, it was not exploitable in a normal environment.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.
T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access
Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution Execution
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in client applications to execute code.
T1210 Exploitation of Remote Services Lateral Movement
Adversaries may exploit remote services to gain unauthorized access to internal systems once inside of a network.
T1211 Exploitation for Stealth Stealth
Adversaries may exploit vulnerabilities to evade detection by hiding activity, suppressing logging, or operating within trusted or unmonitored components.
T1212 Exploitation for Credential Access Credential Access
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to collect credentials.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2023-2512Same vendor: Cloudflare
CVE-2023-3036Same vendor: Cloudflare
CVE-2023-3766Same vendor: Cloudflare
CVE-2026-1229Same vendor: Cloudflare
CVE-2026-0933Same vendor: Cloudflare
CVE-2023-4241Same vendor: Cloudflare
CVE-2023-6992Same vendor: Cloudflare
CVE-2026-23406Shared CWE-125
CVE-2025-37846Shared CWE-125
CVE-2024-53147Shared CWE-125

Affected Assets

cloudflare
lua-resty-json
≤ 2023-05-05

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.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

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

ID.RA-01 partial match
prevents

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

PR.PS-02 partial match
prevents

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

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

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

A.8.15 Logging partial match
finds

Logging can record evidence of an out-of-bounds read but does not prevent the weakness itself.

prevents

Secure development life cycle mandates input validation and bounds checking that directly prevent out-of-bounds reads.

prevents

Application security requirements include explicit bounds and memory-safety specifications that mitigate buffer over-reads.

prevents

Secure system architecture and engineering principles require memory-safe design patterns and runtime protections against out-of-bounds access.

prevents

Secure coding standards explicitly forbid unsafe pointer arithmetic and mandate bounds-checked reads, eliminating CWE-125.

References