CVE-2023-34398
Memory Safety in Headunit Ntg6 Mercedes-Benz User Experience ≤ 2021
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/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-2023-34398 is a high-severity NULL Pointer Dereference (CWE-476) vulnerability in Mercedes-Benz Headunit Ntg6 Mercedes-Benz User Experience. Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique OS Credential Dumping (T1003); ranked in the top 49% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; 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 SA-15 (Development Process, Standards, and Tools) — 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-2023-34398 is a null pointer dereference vulnerability (CWE-476) in the Boost library's serialization functionality, affecting the Mercedes-Benz NTG6 head-unit. The issue arises in functions that import or export profile settings over USB, where certain table values are processed as serialized archives according to the Boost library, leading to the dereference during deserialization.
The vulnerability carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.5 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H), indicating it can be exploited remotely over a network by unauthenticated attackers with low complexity and no user interaction. Exploitation triggers a crash in the affected component, resulting in denial-of-service with high availability impact but no confidentiality or integrity effects.
Mitigation details are outlined in the Kaspersky advisory at https://securelist.com/mercedes-benz-head-unit-security-research/115218/.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2023-38476
Vulnerability Data
Mercedes-Benz head-unit NTG6 contains functions to import or export profile settings over USB. Some values of this table are serialized archive according boost library. The boost library contains a vulnerability/null pointer dereference.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Developer testing and evaluation (including static analysis) directly finds null-dereference bugs before deployment.
Documented development standards and tools can enforce null-safety rules and safe pointer usage.
Engineering principles can mandate defensive coding such as explicit null checks before dereference.
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.
Secure SDLC practices (static analysis, code review, safe coding standards) directly prevent NULL dereference bugs during development.
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.