Cyber Resilience

CVE-2023-37019

Open5Gs ≤ 2.6.4

Public PoC
Published
22 January 2025
Modified
22 April 2025
CVSS Score v3.1 8.6
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0076 52th percentile
Risk Priority 63 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2023-37019 is a high-severity Reachable Assertion (CWE-617) vulnerability in Open5Gs Open5Gs. Its CVSS base score is 8.6 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Application or System Exploitation (T1499.004); ranked in the top 48% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SA-8 (Security and Privacy Engineering Principles) — 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-2023-37019 is a vulnerability in Open5GS MME versions up to and including 2.6.4, where an assertion failure can be remotely triggered via a malformed ASN.1 packet over the S1AP interface. Specifically, an attacker can send an S1Setup Request message missing the required Supported TAs field, causing the MME to crash and resulting in a denial of service. The issue, published on 2025-01-22, is classified under CWE-617 (Reachable Assertion) with a CVSS v3.1 base score of 8.6 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H).

An unauthenticated remote attacker can exploit this vulnerability with low attack complexity over the network. By sending the malformed S1Setup Request repeatedly, the attacker achieves a denial of service by crashing the MME component, disrupting its availability. The changed scope (S:C) reflects the potential for impact beyond the vulnerable component in a 5G core network environment.

Mitigation details are available in the advisory referenced at https://cellularsecurity.org/ransacked.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Open5GS MME versions <= 2.6.4 contains an assertion that can be remotely triggered via a malformed ASN.1 packet over the S1AP interface. An attacker may send an `S1Setup Request` message missing a required `Supported TAs` field to repeatedly crash the…

more

MME, resulting in denial of service.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1499.004 Application or System Exploitation Impact
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities that can cause an application or system to crash and deny availability to users.
T1499 Endpoint Denial of Service Impact
Adversaries may perform Endpoint Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to degrade or block the availability of services to users.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2025-8804Same product: Open5Gs Open5Gs
CVE-2025-7485Same product: Open5Gs Open5Gs
CVE-2023-37012Same product: Open5Gs Open5Gs
CVE-2026-1737Same product: Open5Gs Open5Gs
CVE-2025-6952Same product: Open5Gs Open5Gs
CVE-2026-1736Same product: Open5Gs Open5Gs
CVE-2025-41068Same product: Open5Gs Open5Gs
CVE-2025-14954Same product: Open5Gs Open5Gs
CVE-2023-37017Same product: Open5Gs Open5Gs
CVE-2023-37008Same product: Open5Gs Open5Gs

Affected Assets

open5gs
open5gs
≤ 2.6.4

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Developer testing and evaluation finds reachable assertions during development.

Security engineering principles discourage use of assertions for handling untrusted input.

Validating untrusted inputs structurally prevents attacker data from reaching and triggering assertions.

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.

finds

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.

References