Security Resilience

CVE-2023-48733

Canonical Lxd 5.0 … 5.21

Published
14 February 2024
Modified
26 August 2025
CVSS Score v3.1 6.7
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0026 16th percentile
Risk Priority 48 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-2023-48733 is a medium-severity Initialization of a Resource with an Insecure Default (CWE-1188) vulnerability in Canonical Lxd. Its CVSS base score is 6.7 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Protocol or Service Impersonation (T1001.003); ranked at the 16th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to CM-2 (Baseline Configuration) and CM-6 (Configuration Settings) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

An insecure default to allow UEFI Shell in EDK2 was left enabled in Ubuntu's EDK2. This allows an OS-resident attacker to bypass Secure Boot.

CWE(s)
CWE-1188

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

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.
attack.mitre.org →
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.
attack.mitre.org →
T1003.006 DCSync Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to access credentials and other sensitive information by abusing a Windows Domain Controller's application programming interface (API)(Citation: Microsoft DRSR Dec 2017) (Citation: Microsoft GetNCCChanges) (Citati…
attack.mitre.org →
T1003.007 Proc Filesystem Credential Access
Adversaries may gather credentials from the proc filesystem or `/proc`.
attack.mitre.org →
T1005 Data from Local System Collection
Adversaries may search local system sources, such as file systems, configuration files, local databases, virtual machine files, or process memory, to find files of interest and sensitive data prior to Exfiltration.
attack.mitre.org →
T1006 Direct Volume Access Stealth
Adversaries may directly access a volume to bypass file access controls and file system monitoring.
attack.mitre.org →
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2023-49721Same product: Canonical Lxd
CVE-2026-62185Shared CWE-1188
CVE-2025-59044Shared CWE-1188
CVE-2026-89120Shared CWE-1188
CVE-2025-54127Shared CWE-1188
CVE-2023-28978Shared CWE-1188
CVE-2025-7353Shared CWE-1188
CVE-2023-31101Shared CWE-1188
CVE-2022-24706Shared CWE-1188
CVE-2026-30805Shared CWE-1188

Affected Assets

canonical
lxd
5.0, 5.21
tianocore
edk2
≤ 2023.11-8
debian
debian linux
10.0

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

—

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

—

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)
  • 11 hardening rules · 6 OS baselines
Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V14.3.2
  • V6.3.2
  • V11.3.1
  • V13.2.3

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

CM-2 Baseline Configuration good match

Baseline configuration directly requires documenting and maintaining secure initial settings instead of insecure defaults.

CM-6 Configuration Settings good match

Configuration settings mandate the most restrictive values be applied at initialization, eliminating reliance on insecure factory defaults.

AC-6 Least Privilege partial match

Least privilege reduces the blast radius of any insecure default permissions that remain after initialization.

SA-8 Security and Privacy Engineering Principles partial match

Security engineering principles include explicit requirements for secure defaults during resource initialization and design.

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.RA-09 partial match
blocks

Pre-acquisition integrity checks can reject products known to ship with insecure defaults.

PR.PS-01 partial match
blocks

Hardened baselines and configuration management directly replace insecure defaults with secure settings.

PR.PS-06 partial match
blocks

Secure development practices include designing products with secure defaults rather than insecure ones.

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.

A.5.14 Information transfer partial match
removes
A.5.15 Access control partial match
removes
A.5.16 Identity management partial match
removes
A.5.17 Authentication information partial match
removes
A.5.18 Access rights partial match
removes
A.8.10 Information deletion partial match
removes

Hardening callouts derived

Configuration rules from DISA STIG baselines that bear on weaknesses of the type cited by this CVE. Each rule is shown with the relationship its mapping actually records, against the CWE it was authored against. Derived via CVE→CWE over `controls_xwalks` (higher-evidence rows only; rows rated `none` are excluded).

Oracle Linux 8 (1 rule)
  • V-248823 OL 8 must not have the telnet-server package installed. blocks CWE-1188
RHEL 7 (1 rule)
  • V-204627 SNMP community strings on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must be changed from the default. blocks CWE-1188
Ubuntu 22.04 (1 rule)
  • V-260529 Ubuntu 22.04 LTS must be configured so that remote X connections are disabled, unless to fulfill documented and validated mission requirements. blocks CWE-1188
Ubuntu 24.04 (1 rule)
  • V-270708 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS must be configured so that remote X connections are disabled, unless to fulfill documented and validated mission requirements. blocks CWE-1188
Windows Server 2016 (1 rule)
  • V-224972 Active Directory Group Policy objects must have proper access control permissions. blocks CWE-1188
Windows Server 2019 (1 rule)
  • V-205741 Windows Server 2019 Active Directory Group Policy objects must have proper access control permissions. blocks CWE-1188

References