CVE-2023-38173
Published: 21 July 2023
Summary
CVE-2023-38173 is a medium-severity Authentication Bypass by Spoofing (CWE-290) vulnerability in Microsoft Edge Chromium. Its CVSS base score is 4.3 (Medium).
Operationally, ranked in the top 49.3% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
Deeper analysis
Microsoft Edge for Android contains a spoofing vulnerability tracked as CVE-2023-38173. The flaw received a CVSS 4.3 rating reflecting a network-accessible attack that requires user interaction but no privileges, resulting in limited integrity impact without affecting confidentiality or availability. It is associated with CWE-290, indicating an authentication bypass by spoofing condition.
An unauthenticated remote attacker can exploit the issue by serving crafted content that tricks the browser into misrepresenting origin or identity information. Successful exploitation allows the attacker to spoof elements presented to the user, potentially facilitating phishing or other deception attacks that rely on falsified trust signals.
Microsoft's advisory at the MSRC update guide directs administrators and users to apply the patches released for the affected Edge for Android builds. The guidance emphasizes timely installation of the vendor update as the primary mitigation step.
EPSS scores for the CVE remained low initially but rose materially to a peak of 0.0741 on 2025-01-22 before receding to the current value of 0.0027, indicating a period of increased exploitation interest following disclosure.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2023-41997
Vulnerability details
Microsoft Edge for Android Spoofing Vulnerability
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.
Affected Assets
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.
Reveals spoofed logon attempts through unexpected previous logon timestamps upon legitimate login.
Training specifically addresses recognizing spoofed communications and phishing that enable authentication bypass.
Requiring verifiable identity evidence at appropriate assurance levels makes it substantially harder for attackers to successfully spoof or impersonate users to obtain accounts.
Unique device authentication makes successful spoofing of device identity substantially more difficult to achieve.
Unique identification of non-organizational users reduces the feasibility of authentication bypass by spoofing.
Unique identification and authentication of services before communications makes spoofing of service identities substantially harder.
Isolated trusted path ensures the user interacts only with genuine system components, preventing spoofing of authentication interfaces or prompts.
Directly counters DNS response spoofing by requiring cryptographic origin authentication artifacts from the authoritative source.