Security Resilience

CVE-2023-34299

Memory Safety in Ashlar Cobalt 11.0.1111

Memory Safety
Published
03 May 2024
Modified
08 August 2025
CVSS Score v3 7.8
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0040 32th percentile
Risk Priority 59 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-2023-34299 is a high-severity Heap-based Buffer Overflow (CWE-122) vulnerability in Ashlar Cobalt. Its CVSS base score is 7.8 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Data Obfuscation (T1001); ranked at the 32th 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

Ashlar-Vellum Cobalt CO File Parsing Heap-based Buffer Overflow Remote Code Execution Vulnerability. This vulnerability allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code on affected installations of Ashlar-Vellum Cobalt. User interaction is required to exploit this vulnerability in that the target must…

more

visit a malicious page or open a malicious file. The specific flaw exists within the parsing of CO files. The issue results from the lack of proper validation of the length of user-supplied data prior to copying it to a heap-based buffer. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to execute code in the context of the current process. . Was ZDI-CAN-17910.

CWE(s)
CWE-122

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.
attack.mitre.org →
T1001.002 Steganography Command And Control
Adversaries may use steganographic techniques to hide command and control traffic to make detection efforts more difficult.
attack.mitre.org →
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).
attack.mitre.org →
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.
attack.mitre.org →
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…
attack.mitre.org →
T1006 Direct Volume Access Stealth
Adversaries may directly access a volume to bypass file access controls and file system monitoring.
attack.mitre.org →
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2023-40222Same product: Ashlar Cobalt
CVE-2025-2019Same product: Ashlar Cobalt
CVE-2025-11464Same product: Ashlar Cobalt
CVE-2023-34289Same product: Ashlar Cobalt
CVE-2023-35709Same product: Ashlar Cobalt
CVE-2023-34287Same product: Ashlar Cobalt
CVE-2023-34302Same product: Ashlar Cobalt
CVE-2023-35710Same product: Ashlar Cobalt
CVE-2023-35711Same product: Ashlar Cobalt
CVE-2023-42103Same product: Ashlar Cobalt

Affected Assets

ashlar
cobalt
11.0.1111

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

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

SA-11 Developer Testing and Evaluation good match

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

SI-10 Information Input Validation good match

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

SA-8 Security and Privacy Engineering Principles partial match

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

SI-16 Memory Protection partial match

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.

A.5.14 Information transfer partial match
removes
A.5.15 Access control partial match
removes
A.5.16 Identity management partial match
removes
A.5.17 Authentication information partial match
removes
A.5.18 Access rights partial match
removes
A.8.10 Information deletion partial match
removes

References