Cyber Resilience

CVE-2023-42881

High

Published: 23 January 2024

Published
23 January 2024
Modified
04 November 2025
KEV Added
Patch
CVSS Score v3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0012 30.9th percentile
Risk Priority 16 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2023-42881 is a high-severity Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer (CWE-119) vulnerability in Apple Macos. Its CVSS base score is 7.8 (High).

Operationally, ranked at the 30.9th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability details

The issue was addressed with improved memory handling. This issue is fixed in macOS Sonoma 14.2. Processing a file may lead to unexpected app termination or arbitrary code execution.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

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

Affected Assets

apple
macos
≤ 14.2

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