Security Resilience

CVE-2023-4807

Openssl 1.1.1 – 1.1.1w

Published
08 September 2023
Modified
14 October 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 7.8
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.016 75th percentile
Risk Priority 60 floored blend · peak EPSS

CVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.

Summary

CVE-2023-4807 is a high-severity Expected Behavior Violation (CWE-440) vulnerability in Openssl Openssl. Its CVSS base score is 7.8 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Junk Data (T1001.001); ranked in the top 25% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Issue summary: The POLY1305 MAC (message authentication code) implementation contains a bug that might corrupt the internal state of applications on the Windows 64 platform when running on newer X86_64 processors supporting the AVX512-IFMA instructions. Impact summary: If in an…

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application that uses the OpenSSL library an attacker can influence whether the POLY1305 MAC algorithm is used, the application state might be corrupted with various application dependent consequences. The POLY1305 MAC (message authentication code) implementation in OpenSSL does not save the contents of non-volatile XMM registers on Windows 64 platform when calculating the MAC of data larger than 64 bytes. Before returning to the caller all the XMM registers are set to zero rather than restoring their previous content. The vulnerable code is used only on newer x86_64 processors supporting the AVX512-IFMA instructions. The consequences of this kind of internal application state corruption can be various - from no consequences, if the calling application does not depend on the contents of non-volatile XMM registers at all, to the worst consequences, where the attacker could get complete control of the application process. However given the contents of the registers are just zeroized so the attacker cannot put arbitrary values inside, the most likely consequence, if any, would be an incorrect result of some application dependent calculations or a crash leading to a denial of service. The POLY1305 MAC algorithm is most frequently used as part of the CHACHA20-POLY1305 AEAD (authenticated encryption with associated data) algorithm. The most common usage of this AEAD cipher is with TLS protocol versions 1.2 and 1.3 and a malicious client can influence whether this AEAD cipher is used by the server. This implies that server applications using OpenSSL can be potentially impacted. However we are currently not aware of any concrete application that would be affected by this issue therefore we consider this a Low severity security issue. As a workaround the AVX512-IFMA instructions support can be disabled at runtime by setting the environment variable OPENSSL_ia32cap: OPENSSL_ia32cap=:~0x200000 The FIPS provider is not affected by this issue.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1001.001 Junk Data Command And Control
Adversaries may add junk data to protocols used for command and control to make detection more difficult.
T1001.002 Steganography Command And Control
Adversaries may use steganographic techniques to hide command and control traffic to make detection efforts more difficult.
T1001.003 Protocol or Service Impersonation Command And Control
Adversaries may impersonate legitimate protocols or web service traffic to disguise command and control activity and thwart analysis efforts.
T1003.002 Security Account Manager Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to extract credential material from the Security Account Manager (SAM) database either through in-memory techniques or through the Windows Registry where the SAM database is stored.
T1003.008 /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to dump the contents of <code>/etc/passwd</code> and <code>/etc/shadow</code> to enable offline password cracking.
T1006 Direct Volume Access Stealth
Adversaries may directly access a volume to bypass file access controls and file system monitoring.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2023-6129Same product: Openssl Openssl
CVE-2025-11187Same product: Openssl Openssl
CVE-2025-15467Same product: Openssl Openssl
CVE-2023-0465Same product: Openssl Openssl
CVE-2023-0466Same product: Openssl Openssl
CVE-2026-42769Same product: Openssl Openssl
CVE-2025-4575Same product: Openssl Openssl
CVE-2023-0464Same product: Openssl Openssl
CVE-2025-68160Same product: Openssl Openssl
CVE-2025-69419Same product: Openssl Openssl

Affected Assets

openssl
openssl
1.1.1 — 1.1.1w · 3.0.0 — 3.0.11 · 3.1.0 — 3.1.3

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-440

Verification of security function operation directly detects deviations from expected behavior.

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.

ID.IM-02 partial match
blocks

Security testing and exercises help discover behavior deviations before deployment.

ID.RA-01 partial match
blocks

Vulnerability identification can surface spec-violating flaws, while eliminating the weakness reduces some vulnerability backlog.

PR.PS-02 partial match
blocks

Routine software maintenance and patching can remediate discovered specification violations.

PR.PS-06 partial match
blocks

Secure SDLC practices directly enforce specification compliance and catch expected-behavior violations 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.

blocks

Secure development life cycle mandates verification against specifications, directly reducing expected-behavior violations.

blocks

A.8.26 only requires that security requirements (including resilience against attacks like injections) be identified and specified during development or acquisition; it does not itself enforce, implement or assure those requirements, so the expected-behavior violation can still arise and be exploited.

prevents

Secure coding practices enforce adherence to functional specifications during implementation.

finds

Security testing in development and acceptance validates that functions behave as specified.

References