Cyber Resilience

CVE-2023-3301

Race Condition in Redhat Enterprise Linux 8.0 … 9.0

Published
13 September 2023
Modified
21 November 2024
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 5.6
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0025 17th percentile
Risk Priority 35 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2023-3301 is a medium-severity Reachable Assertion (CWE-617) vulnerability in Redhat Enterprise Linux. Its CVSS base score is 5.6 (Medium).

Operationally, ranked at the 17th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

A flaw was found in QEMU. The async nature of hot-unplug enables a race scenario where the net device backend is cleared before the virtio-net pci frontend has been unplugged. A malicious guest could use this time window to trigger…

more

an assertion and cause a denial of service.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2024-3567Same product: Qemu Qemu
CVE-2024-8354Same product: Qemu Qemu
CVE-2023-3019Same product: Qemu Qemu
CVE-2023-2680Same product: Qemu Qemu
CVE-2023-6683Same product: Qemu Qemu
CVE-2023-5088Same product: Qemu Qemu
CVE-2024-6505Same product: Qemu Qemu
CVE-2023-3255Same product: Qemu Qemu
CVE-2023-6693Same product: Qemu Qemu
CVE-2023-3354Same product: Qemu Qemu

Affected Assets

qemu
qemu
≤ 8.0.3
redhat
enterprise linux
8.0, 9.0

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)
  • V10.4.2
  • V10.4.5
  • V15.1.3
  • V15.4.1

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.

addresses: CWE-362

Accurate timestamps from internal clocks enable detection of race conditions by providing reliable event ordering in audit logs.

addresses: CWE-362

Coordination of concurrent security activities reduces the probability that shared resources will be accessed simultaneously without proper synchronization.

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 unsafe assertions from being coded in reachable paths.

DE.CM-09 partial match
prevents

Runtime monitoring of software can detect assertion-triggered crashes as adverse events.

ID.RA-01 partial match
prevents

Vulnerability identification processes can discover and record reachable-assertion flaws before deployment.

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.

detects

Security testing in development can detect reachable assertions before release, reducing the likelihood of exploitation.

prevents

Secure development lifecycle mandates defensive coding and input validation that prevent reachable assertions from being triggered by untrusted data.

prevents

Application security requirements can specify that assertions must not be reachable from attacker-controlled inputs.

prevents

Secure architecture principles discourage the use of assertions for runtime error handling that an attacker could exploit.

prevents

Secure coding standards explicitly ban the use of assert() or equivalent statements that can be triggered by external input.

none

Change management reduces introduction of concurrency bugs during updates, yet does not address the weakness itself.

References