CVE-2023-31345
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:HCVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.
Summary
CVE-2023-31345 is a high-severity Improper Access Control for Volatile Memory Containing Boot Code (CWE-1274) vulnerability in Amd (inferred from references). Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique NTDS (T1003.003); ranked at the 7th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-3 (Access Enforcement) and AC-6 (Least Privilege) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary
Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.
CVE-2023-31345 involves improper input validation in the SMM handler, which may allow a privileged attacker to overwrite SMRAM, potentially leading to arbitrary code execution. This vulnerability, associated with CWE-1274, affects AMD platforms, as documented in multiple AMD security bulletins.
Exploitation requires local access (AV:L), high attack complexity (AC:H), and high privileges (PR:H), with no user interaction (UI:N). A successful attack can achieve high impacts on confidentiality, integrity, and availability (C:H/I:H/A:H) within a changed scope (S:C), yielding a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.5.
AMD has published security bulletins, including AMD-SB-3009, AMD-SB-4008, and AMD-SB-5004, which detail mitigations and patches to address this issue. The vulnerability was published on 2025-02-12.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2023-35656
Vulnerability Data
Improper input validation in the SMM handler may allow a privileged attacker to overwrite SMRAM, potentially leading to arbitrary code execution.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
AC-3 directly enforces access authorizations on system resources including the volatile memory region holding boot code.
AC-6 restricts privileges so that only authorized processes can access the volatile memory containing boot code.
SC-3 isolates security functions such as boot code from non-security code, structurally preventing unauthorized access to the VM region.
SC-39 maintains separate execution domains that can isolate bootloader code loaded into volatile memory.
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.DS-10 directly requires protecting data-in-use (including VM) from unauthorized access, eliminating most of this specific boot-code exposure, yet the weakness also spans secure-boot process design and NVM-to-VM transfer that one general data-protection outcome does not fully close.
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.5.15 only requires defining a topic-specific access control policy, determining requirements, and mapping rights; it does not mandate or implement any concrete access control mechanism or protection for volatile memory regions, so the boot-code weakness is not removed from the product.
A.5.18 governs the provisioning, review, and revocation of access rights to information/assets for authenticated identities; it has no mechanism that removes the absence of access controls or protections on volatile memory holding boot code, which is a first-party hardware/firmware design defect
A weakness discoverable only by hardware development or microarchitectural research (HARDWARE_ONLY_CWES) grades `finds` none against a software-development control: the frameworks we grade do not reach hardware development (owner, 2026-10-16).
A.8.2 governs the allocation, review, expiry and logging of privileged access rights to users/services; it has no bearing on hardware-level access controls or protections for volatile memory holding boot code, so the weakness can still be present and exploited regardless of this control.