Cyber Resilience

CVE-2023-31130

Memory Safety in Fedoraproject Fedora 37 … 38

Memory Safety
Published
25 May 2023
Modified
13 February 2025
CVSS Score v3.1 4.1
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0039 32th percentile
Risk Priority 33 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2023-31130 is a medium-severity Buffer Underflow (CWE-124) vulnerability in Fedoraproject Fedora. Its CVSS base score is 4.1 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 32th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

c-ares is an asynchronous resolver library. ares_inet_net_pton() is vulnerable to a buffer underflow for certain ipv6 addresses, in particular "0::00:00:00/2" was found to cause an issue. C-ares only uses this function internally for configuration purposes which would require an administrator…

more

to configure such an address via ares_set_sortlist(). However, users may externally use ares_inet_net_pton() for other purposes and thus be vulnerable to more severe issues. This issue has been fixed in 1.19.1.

CWE(s)
CWE-124CWE-787

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.
attack.mitre.org →
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.
attack.mitre.org →
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution Execution
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in client applications to execute code.
attack.mitre.org →
T1210 Exploitation of Remote Services Lateral Movement
Adversaries may exploit remote services to gain unauthorized access to internal systems once inside of a network.
attack.mitre.org →
T1211 Exploitation for Stealth Stealth
Adversaries may exploit vulnerabilities to evade detection by hiding activity, suppressing logging, or operating within trusted or unmonitored components.
attack.mitre.org →
T1212 Exploitation for Credential Access Credential Access
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to collect credentials.
attack.mitre.org →
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2023-4354Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2023-40569Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2023-1810Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2023-43641Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2023-2133Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2023-39352Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2021-21148Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2023-40567Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2023-4355Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2023-7024Same product: Debian Debian Linux

Affected Assets

c-ares project
c-ares
≤ 1.19.1
fedoraproject
fedora
37, 38
debian
debian linux
10.0, 11.0

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

—

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

—

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

—

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V1.4.1

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.

SI-16 Memory Protection
addresses: CWE-787

Out-of-bounds writes that corrupt control flow or inject shellcode are rendered non-executable by the same memory protections.

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 SDLC practices directly prevent introduction of buffer underwrite flaws via coding standards, reviews, and testing.

ID.RA-01 partial match
prevents

Vulnerability identification processes can discover buffer underwrite issues but do not prevent their creation.

PR.PS-02 partial match
prevents

Patching removes instances of the weakness after discovery but does not address root-cause prevention in code.

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.8.29 Security testing in development and acceptance mostly match
finds

Security testing in development catches buffer-underflow defects before release.

A.8.25 Secure development life cycle partial match
prevents

Secure SDLC mandates input validation and bounds checking that directly prevent buffer underflow.

A.8.26 Application security requirements partial match
prevents

Application security requirements can specify buffer-size and pointer-safety rules.

A.8.27 Secure system architecture and engineering principles partial match
prevents

Secure architecture and engineering principles require safe memory-handling patterns.

A.8.28 Secure coding partial match
prevents

Secure coding standards explicitly forbid unsafe pointer arithmetic and mandate bounds checks.

A.8.32 Change management partial match
prevents

Change management can enforce review gates that catch unsafe memory operations before deployment.

References