CVE-2023-42443
Published: 18 September 2023
Summary
CVE-2023-42443 is a high-severity Out-of-bounds Write (CWE-787) vulnerability in Vyperlang Vyper. Its CVSS base score is 8.1 (High).
Operationally, ranked at the 45.4th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.
This vulnerability is AI-related — categorised as Other AI Platforms; in the Protocol-Specific Risks risk domain.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2023-0275
Vulnerability details
Vyper is a Pythonic Smart Contract Language for the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). In version 0.3.9 and prior, under certain conditions, the memory used by the builtins `raw_call`, `create_from_blueprint` and `create_copy_of` can be corrupted. For `raw_call`, the argument buffer of…
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the call can be corrupted, leading to incorrect `calldata` in the sub-context. For `create_from_blueprint` and `create_copy_of`, the buffer for the to-be-deployed bytecode can be corrupted, leading to deploying incorrect bytecode. Each builtin has conditions that must be fulfilled for the corruption to happen. For `raw_call`, the `data` argument of the builtin must be `msg.data` and the `value` or `gas` passed to the builtin must be some complex expression that results in writing to the memory. For `create_copy_of`, the `value` or `salt` passed to the builtin must be some complex expression that results in writing to the memory. For `create_from_blueprint`, either no constructor parameters should be passed to the builtin or `raw_args` should be set to True, and the `value` or `salt` passed to the builtin must be some complex expression that results in writing to the memory. As of time of publication, no patched version exists. The issue is still being investigated, and there might be other cases where the corruption might happen. When the builtin is being called from an `internal` function `F`, the issue is not present provided that the function calling `F` wrote to memory before calling `F`. As a workaround, the complex expressions that are being passed as kwargs to the builtin should be cached in memory prior to the call to the builtin.
- CWE(s)
AI Security AnalysisAI
- AI Category
- Other AI Platforms
- Risk Domain
- Protocol-Specific Risks
- OWASP Top 10 for LLMs 2025
- None mapped
- Classification Reason
- Matched keywords: function calling
Related Threats
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.
Out-of-bounds writes that corrupt control flow or inject shellcode are rendered non-executable by the same memory protections.