Security Resilience

CVE-2023-50926

Memory Safety in Contiki-Ng ≤ 4.9

Memory Safety
Published
14 February 2024
Modified
06 January 2025
Patch / advisory
View advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 7.5
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0053 44th percentile
Risk Priority 58 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-2023-50926 is a high-severity Out-of-bounds Read (CWE-125) vulnerability in Contiki-Ng Contiki-Ng. Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Data Obfuscation (T1001); ranked at the 44th 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 SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SA-8 (Security and Privacy Engineering Principles) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Contiki-NG is an open-source, cross-platform operating system for Next-Generation IoT devices. An out-of-bounds read can be caused by an incoming DIO message when using the RPL-Lite implementation in the Contiki-NG operating system. More specifically, the prefix information of the DIO…

more

message contains a field that specifies the length of an IPv6 address prefix. The value of this field is not validated, which means that an attacker can set a value that is longer than the maximum prefix length. Subsequently, a memcmp function call that compares different prefixes can be called with a length argument that surpasses the boundary of the array allocated for the prefix, causing an out-of-bounds read. The problem has been patched in the "develop" branch of Contiki-NG, and is expected to be included in the next release. Users are advised to update as soon as they are able to or to manually apply the changes in Contiki-NG pull request #2721.

CWE(s)
CWE-125

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1001 Data Obfuscation Command And Control
Adversaries may obfuscate command and control traffic to make it more difficult to detect.
attack.mitre.org →
T1001.002 Steganography Command And Control
Adversaries may use steganographic techniques to hide command and control traffic to make detection efforts more difficult.
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 →
T1003.003 NTDS Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to access or create a copy of the Active Directory domain database in order to steal credential information, as well as obtain other information about domain members such as devices, users, and access rights.
attack.mitre.org →
T1003.004 LSA Secrets Credential Access
Adversaries with SYSTEM access to a host may attempt to access Local Security Authority (LSA) secrets, which can contain a variety of different credential materials, such as credentials for service accounts.
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 →
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2023-37281Same product: Contiki-Ng Contiki-Ng
CVE-2023-34101Same product: Contiki-Ng Contiki-Ng
CVE-2023-34100Same product: Contiki-Ng Contiki-Ng
CVE-2023-50927Same product: Contiki-Ng Contiki-Ng
CVE-2024-41125Same product: Contiki-Ng Contiki-Ng
CVE-2024-41126Same product: Contiki-Ng Contiki-Ng
CVE-2023-37459Same product: Contiki-Ng Contiki-Ng
CVE-2023-30546Same product: Contiki-Ng Contiki-Ng
CVE-2025-61845Shared CWE-125
CVE-2026-21340Shared CWE-125

Affected Assets

contiki-ng
contiki-ng
≤ 4.9

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

SA-11 Developer Testing and Evaluation good match

Developer testing and evaluation directly finds out-of-bounds read flaws through static analysis, fuzzing, and dynamic bounds checks.

SA-8 Security and Privacy Engineering Principles partial match

Secure engineering principles require bounds checking and memory-safe constructs that stop out-of-bounds reads from being introduced.

SC-39 Process Isolation partial match

Process isolation confines the effects of an out-of-bounds read to the compromised process.

SI-10 Information Input Validation partial match

Input validation rejects malformed indices or lengths that would otherwise cause reads outside buffer bounds.

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-01 partial match
blocks

Vulnerability scanning and recording can discover instances of out-of-bounds reads after code is deployed.

PR.PS-02 partial match
blocks

Routine patching replaces vulnerable code containing out-of-bounds read flaws.

PR.PS-06 partial match
blocks

Secure-development practices such as bounds checking and memory-safe languages directly prevent out-of-bounds reads.

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

References