CVE-2023-38171
Memory Safety in Microsoft Visual Studio 2022 17.2.0 – 17.2.20
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-2023-38171 is a high-severity NULL Pointer Dereference (CWE-476) vulnerability in Microsoft Visual Studio 2022. 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 0.6% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary
Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.
The vulnerability CVE-2023-38171 is a denial-of-service flaw in Microsoft QUIC, carrying a CVSS 3.1 score of 7.5 under the vector AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H and linked to CWE-476. It affects the QUIC protocol implementation in Microsoft products and can produce a high-impact availability loss when triggered.
An unauthenticated remote attacker can send specially crafted network traffic to exploit the issue and cause the affected QUIC endpoint to stop responding, resulting in denial of service without any user interaction or credentials.
Microsoft has published guidance for the vulnerability in its security update guide at https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2023-38171. The associated EPSS probability reached a peak of 0.0987 and currently stands at 0.0830.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2023-2837
Vulnerability Data
Microsoft QUIC Denial of Service Vulnerability
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
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.