Cyber Resilience

CVE-2023-39615

MediumPublic PoC

Published: 29 August 2023

Published
29 August 2023
Modified
03 November 2025
KEV Added
Patch
CVSS Score v3.1 6.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0012 30.2th percentile
Risk Priority 13 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2023-39615 is a medium-severity Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer (CWE-119) vulnerability in Xmlsoft Libxml2. Its CVSS base score is 6.5 (Medium).

Operationally, ranked at the 30.2th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability details

Xmlsoft Libxml2 v2.11.0 was discovered to contain an out-of-bounds read via the xmlSAX2StartElement() function at /libxml2/SAX2.c. This vulnerability allows attackers to cause a Denial of Service (DoS) via supplying a crafted XML file. NOTE: the vendor's position is that the…

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product does not support the legacy SAX1 interface with custom callbacks; there is a crash even without crafted input.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.

Affected Assets

xmlsoft
libxml2
2.11.0

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-119

Ongoing control assessments and code testing (static/dynamic analysis, fuzzing) surface memory buffer restriction failures, which are then remediated before release.

addresses: CWE-119

Managed runtimes used by platform-independent applications (e.g., JVM, CLR) enforce memory safety, preventing most buffer overflows that require direct memory manipulation.

addresses: CWE-119

Memory protections (e.g., W^X, ASLR) make exploitation of buffer-boundary violations far harder to turn into code execution.

addresses: CWE-119

Detects exploitation attempts that produce memory corruption, crashes, or anomalous behavior.

References