Cyber Resilience

CVE-2023-37479

Openenclave ≤ 0.19.3

Published
17 July 2023
Modified
21 November 2024
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 5.3
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
EPSS Score 0.0069 50th percentile
Risk Priority 43 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2023-37479 is a medium-severity Improper Initialization (CWE-665) vulnerability in Openenclave Openenclave. Its CVSS base score is 5.3 (Medium).

Operationally, ranked at the 50th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Open Enclave is a hardware-agnostic open source library for developing applications that utilize Hardware-based Trusted Execution Environments, also known as Enclaves. There are two issues that are mitigated in version 0.19.3. First, Open Enclave SDK does not properly sanitize the…

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`MXCSR` register on enclave entry. This makes applications vulnerable to MXCSR Configuration Dependent Timing (MCDT) attacks, where incorrect `MXCSR` values can impact instruction retirement by at most one cycle, depending on the (secret) data operand value. Please find more details in the guidance from Intel in the references. Second, Open Enclave SDK does not sanitize x86's alignment check flag `RFLAGS.AC` on enclave entry. This opens up the possibility for a side-channel attacker to be notified for every unaligned memory access performed by the enclave. The issue has been addressed in version 0.19.3 and the current master branch. Users will need to recompile their applications against the patched libraries to be protected from this vulnerability. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2025-5745Shared CWE-665
CVE-2025-14955Shared CWE-665
CVE-2023-1513Shared CWE-665
CVE-2026-26958Shared CWE-665
CVE-2023-27887Shared CWE-665
CVE-2024-28084Shared CWE-665
CVE-2025-24511Shared CWE-665
CVE-2023-1719Shared CWE-665
CVE-2023-27324Shared CWE-665
CVE-2023-22356Shared CWE-665

Affected Assets

openenclave
openenclave
≤ 0.19.3

Mitigating Controls

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-665

Ensures shared resources are explicitly initialized or cleared on allocation, preventing exposure of prior contents to new users or processes.

addresses: CWE-665

Mandates that every instance begins in a known (presumably clean) state, eliminating reliance on residual or uninitialized state left by prior executions.

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 enforce proper resource initialization during coding and testing.

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 can detect uninitialized variables but does not itself enforce initialization practices.

prevents

Configuration management can enforce secure defaults and initialization settings but is not the primary control for code-level initialization.

prevents

Secure development life cycle mandates initialization checks and secure defaults that directly prevent improper resource initialization.

prevents

Secure system architecture and engineering principles require explicit initialization of resources and secure state management.

prevents

Secure coding standards explicitly forbid uninitialized variables and mandate proper resource initialization before use.

References