Gawk builtin.c Heap OOB Read Crash/Vulnerability
CVE-2023-4156 Published on September 25, 2023
Heap out of bound read in builtin.c
A heap out-of-bounds read flaw was found in builtin.c in the gawk package. This issue may lead to a crash and could be used to read sensitive information.
Vulnerability Analysis
CVE-2023-4156 is exploitable with local system access, requires user interaction. This vulnerability is considered to have a low attack complexity. Public availability of a proof of concept (POC) exploit exists for CVE-2023-4156. The potential impact of an exploit of this vulnerability is considered to have a small impact on confidentiality, a small impact on integrity, and a small impact on availability.
Timeline
Reported to Red Hat.
Made public.
Weakness Type
Out-of-bounds Read
The software reads data past the end, or before the beginning, of the intended buffer. Typically, this can allow attackers to read sensitive information from other memory locations or cause a crash. A crash can occur when the code reads a variable amount of data and assumes that a sentinel exists to stop the read operation, such as a NUL in a string. The expected sentinel might not be located in the out-of-bounds memory, causing excessive data to be read, leading to a segmentation fault or a buffer overflow. The software may modify an index or perform pointer arithmetic that references a memory location that is outside of the boundaries of the buffer. A subsequent read operation then produces undefined or unexpected results.
Products Associated with CVE-2023-4156
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Exploit Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) scores estimate the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. The percentile shows you how this score compares to all other vulnerabilities.