Security Resilience

CVE-2023-32436

Memory Safety in Apple Macos ≤ 13.3

Published
10 January 2024
Modified
20 June 2025
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 7.1
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0020 9th percentile
Risk Priority 51 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-2023-32436 is a high-severity Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer (CWE-119) vulnerability in Apple Macos. Its CVSS base score is 7.1 (High).

Operationally, ranked at the 9th 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-8 (Security and Privacy Engineering Principles) and SI-10 (Information Input Validation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

The issue was addressed with improved bounds checks. This issue is fixed in macOS Ventura 13.3. An app may be able to cause unexpected system termination or write kernel memory.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2026-43710Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2026-64697Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2026-39870Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2023-42856Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2025-31263Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2026-43682Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2026-39873Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2026-64696Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2025-43287Same product: Apple Macos
CVE-2025-30437Same product: Apple Macos

Affected Assets

apple
macos
≤ 13.3

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Secure engineering principles require memory-safe design and coding that structurally avoids buffer-boundary violations.

Input validation directly enforces bounds checking that stops out-of-bounds reads/writes from being introduced or reached.

Memory protection restricts exploitation impact of buffer overflows without eliminating the underlying coding flaw.

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.

blocks

A.8.25 mandates secure SDLC practices (secure coding guidelines, security requirements, testing including code scans and penetration tests, developer training) that reach buffer management and can stop many buffer overruns from reaching production, but leaves a bounded remainder (e.g. flaws in non-software components, incomplete enforcement of guidelines, or post-deployment changes)

blocks

Application security requirements can specify memory-safety rules, but do not prescribe implementation details.

blocks

A.8.27 mandates security-by-design principles (e.g. least privilege, fail securely, distrust external input, hardening) plus design reviews that can catch and stop buffer-boundary errors before they reach code, but this is only one minority slice of CWE-119's broad surface (language-specific flaws, unsafe library use, compiler/runtime mitigations, and post-deployment instances remain outside its direct scope).

prevents

Secure coding standards explicitly forbid unsafe buffer operations, directly eliminating CWE-119.

finds

Security testing in development catches out-of-bounds accesses before release, covering most instances of the weakness.

Hardening callouts derived

DISA STIG baselines are authored against specific weaknesses. Where this CVE cites a broad weakness class, the mapping is not asserted at that abstraction (owner ruling, 2026-09-25: grade only at Base and below), so no rule is shown here rather than a rule shown against the wrong grain.

  • No fine-grained STIG row for CWE-119, a class-level weakness. Rules are authored against its narrower children: CWE-823.

References