Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:HSummary
CVE-2023-49285 is a high-severity Buffer Over-read (CWE-126) vulnerability in Squid-Cache Squid. Its CVSS base score is 8.6 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique OS Credential Dumping (T1003); ranked in the top 0.2% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary
Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.
Squid, a widely used caching proxy supporting HTTP, HTTPS, FTP and related protocols, contains a buffer overread vulnerability in its HTTP message processing code. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2023-49285 and assigned CWE-126 and CWE-125, allows an attacker to trigger a denial of service by supplying specially crafted input that causes Squid to read beyond allocated buffer boundaries. The issue affects multiple maintained release lines prior to the 6.5 release and carries a CVSS 3.1 base score of 8.6 reflecting network attack vector, low complexity, and high availability impact with no required privileges or user interaction.
An unauthenticated remote attacker can send malicious HTTP messages directly to an exposed Squid instance, causing the proxy to crash or become unresponsive. Because the vulnerability resides in core message parsing, the attack can be mounted against any deployment that accepts untrusted client or server traffic, including forward and reverse proxy configurations.
Official advisories and patches published by the Squid project state that the bug is resolved in version 6.5 and provide back-ported fixes for the 5.x series via the referenced SQUID-2023_7 patches and corresponding Git commits. No workarounds are documented, and administrators are advised to upgrade immediately. The associated EPSS score has remained low and stable near 0.096, indicating limited observed exploitation interest to date.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2023-53278
Vulnerability Data
Squid is a caching proxy for the Web supporting HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, and more. Due to a Buffer Overread bug Squid is vulnerable to a Denial of Service attack against Squid HTTP Message processing. This bug is fixed by Squid…
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version 6.5. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
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Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
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.
Secure development practices directly prevent introduction of buffer over-read weaknesses.
Vulnerability identification processes can discover buffer over-read flaws via scanning or review.
Patching or replacing vulnerable software removes known instances of buffer over-read bugs.
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.
Security testing in development can detect buffer over-reads before release.
Logging can record evidence of an out-of-bounds read but does not prevent the weakness itself.
Secure SDLC mandates input validation and bounds checking that can prevent buffer over-reads.
Application security requirements can specify buffer-size and bounds-checking rules.
Secure architecture principles include memory-safety and bounds-checking design choices.
Secure coding standards directly require bounds-checked buffer access, mitigating over-reads.