Security Resilience

CVE-2023-32157

Memory Safety in Tesla Model 3 Firmware 2023.6

Published
03 May 2024
Modified
13 August 2025
CVSS Score v3.1 7.5
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0040 33th percentile
Risk Priority 55 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-2023-32157 is a high-severity Heap-based Buffer Overflow (CWE-122) vulnerability in Tesla Model 3 Firmware. Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Data Obfuscation (T1001); ranked at the 33th 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 SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SI-10 (Information Input Validation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Tesla Model 3 bsa_server BIP Heap-based Buffer Overflow Arbitrary Code Execution Vulnerability. This vulnerability allows network-adjacent attackers to execute arbitrary code on affected Tesla Model 3 vehicles. An attacker must first obtain the ability to pair a malicious Bluetooth device…

more

with the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability. The specific flaw exists within the bsa_server process. The issue results from the lack of proper validation of the length of user-supplied data prior to copying it to a fixed-length heap-based buffer. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to execute code in the context of an unprivileged user in a sandboxed process. . Was ZDI-CAN-20737.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1001 Data Obfuscation Command And Control
Adversaries may obfuscate command and control traffic to make it more difficult to detect.
T1001.002 Steganography Command And Control
Adversaries may use steganographic techniques to hide command and control traffic to make detection efforts more difficult.
T1003.001 LSASS Memory Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to access credential material stored in the process memory of the Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS).
T1003.002 Security Account Manager Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to extract credential material from the Security Account Manager (SAM) database either through in-memory techniques or through the Windows Registry where the SAM database is stored.
T1003.004 LSA Secrets Credential Access
Adversaries with SYSTEM access to a host may attempt to access Local Security Authority (LSA) secrets, which can contain a variety of different credential materials, such as credentials for service accounts.
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…
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2024-6031Same vendor: Tesla
CVE-2026-46520Shared CWE-122, CWE-787
CVE-2024-39518Shared CWE-122, CWE-787
CVE-2025-27177Shared CWE-122, CWE-787
CVE-2023-4692Shared CWE-122, CWE-787
CVE-2026-40691Shared CWE-122, CWE-787
CVE-2026-12844Shared CWE-122, CWE-787
CVE-2024-4559Shared CWE-122, CWE-787
CVE-2023-1906Shared CWE-122, CWE-787
CVE-2025-1656Shared CWE-122, CWE-787

Affected Assets

tesla
model 3 firmware
2023.6

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

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Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

—

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

—

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

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Developer testing and evaluation (including fuzzing and memory-error detectors) can discover heap overflows after they have been coded.

Input validation enforces bounds checking on data written to heap buffers, directly stopping the overflow condition from being introduced.

Requiring documented secure-development standards and tools can mandate bounds-checked coding practices that avoid the weakness.

Security engineering principles require use of memory-safe constructs and bounds-checked allocation routines that avoid introducing heap overflows.

Memory-protection mechanisms limit the ability of a heap overflow to execute attacker-controlled code or corrupt adjacent structures.

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.

ID.RA-01 partial match
blocks

Vulnerability scanning and recording can discover heap-overflow flaws but does not prevent their introduction in code.

PR.PS-02 partial match
blocks

Timely patching removes known heap-overflow instances after they exist.

PR.PS-06 partial match
blocks

Secure-development practices directly require bounds checking and safe memory handling that prevent heap overflows.

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.

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References