Cyber Resilience

CVE-2023-6992

Memory Safety in Cloudflare Zlib ≤ 2023-11-16

Published
04 January 2024
Modified
21 November 2024
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 4.0
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L
EPSS Score 0.0024 15th percentile
Risk Priority 32 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2023-6992 is a medium-severity Improper Input Validation (CWE-20) vulnerability in Cloudflare Zlib. Its CVSS base score is 4.0 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 15th 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 SI-10 (Information Input Validation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Cloudflare version of zlib library was found to be vulnerable to memory corruption issues affecting the deflation algorithm implementation (deflate.c). The issues resulted from improper input validation and heap-based buffer overflow. A local attacker could exploit the problem during compression…

more

using a crafted malicious file potentially leading to denial of service of the software. Patches: The issue has been patched in commit 8352d10 https://github.com/cloudflare/zlib/commit/8352d108c05db1bdc5ac3bdf834dad641694c13c . The upstream repository is not affected.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.
T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access
Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution Execution
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in client applications to execute code.
T1210 Exploitation of Remote Services Lateral Movement
Adversaries may exploit remote services to gain unauthorized access to internal systems once inside of a network.
T1211 Exploitation for Stealth Stealth
Adversaries may exploit vulnerabilities to evade detection by hiding activity, suppressing logging, or operating within trusted or unmonitored components.
T1212 Exploitation for Credential Access Credential Access
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to collect credentials.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2024-38261Shared CWE-122, CWE-126
CVE-2024-38265Shared CWE-122, CWE-126
CVE-2026-32177Shared CWE-122, CWE-20
CVE-2023-28572Shared CWE-126, CWE-787
CVE-2023-22385Shared CWE-126, CWE-787
CVE-2026-21678Shared CWE-122, CWE-20
CVE-2026-49840Shared CWE-122, CWE-20
CVE-2024-21473Shared CWE-20, CWE-787
CVE-2023-20721Shared CWE-20, CWE-787
CVE-2024-25942Shared CWE-20, CWE-787

Affected Assets

cloudflare
zlib
≤ 2023-11-16

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)
  • 6 hardening rules · 3 OS baselines
Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V1.4.1

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Developer testing and evaluation can discover missing input validation through analysis or test cases.

SI-10 directly requires validity checks on information inputs, structurally preventing improper or missing validation.

Requiring documented development standards and tools can embed input-validation practices into the engineering process.

Security engineering principles require use of memory-safe constructs and bounds-checked allocation routines that avoid introducing heap overflows.

Process isolation limits the blast radius of an over-read to the compromised domain.

Memory-protection mechanisms limit the ability of a heap overflow to execute attacker-controlled code or corrupt adjacent structures.

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.

PR.PS-06 full match
prevents

Secure-development practices directly require bounds checking and safe memory handling that prevent heap overflows.

ID.RA-01 partial match
prevents

Vulnerability scanning and recording can discover heap-overflow flaws but does not prevent their introduction in code.

PR.PS-02 partial match
prevents

Timely patching removes known heap-overflow instances after they exist.

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.

finds

Testing against a defined set of requirements and using code review plus vulnerability scanning forces validation of inputs and handling of unanticipated conditions, reducing the chance that malformed data will be accepted.

prevents

Secure-coding guidelines and mandatory security testing (including code scans) compel developers to validate and sanitize inputs at design and implementation time, lowering the incidence of malformed or malicious data reaching downstream components.

prevents

Mandating input controls that include integrity checks and input validation ensures that untrusted data is examined before use, blocking the root cause of many injection and malformed-data weaknesses.

prevents

Security-by-design principles explicitly call for data validation and sanitization at every layer, reducing the chance that malformed or malicious input will be processed without scrutiny.

prevents

Requiring language-specific secure coding standards, peer review, SAST and documented mitigation of common programming errors forces validation of all inputs before they are trusted.

prevents

Change management can enforce review gates that catch unsafe memory operations before deployment.

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` (authoritative rows only; rows rated `none` are excluded).

RHEL 8 (1 rule)
  • V-230265 RHEL 8 must prevent the installation of software, patches, service packs, device drivers, or operating system components of local packages without verification they have been digitally signed using a certificate that is issued by a Certificate Authority (CA) that is recognized and approved by the organization. prevents CWE-20

References