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Fencer Intel
high 7.5

CVE-2023-38039 in the critical feed json

When curl retrieves an HTTP response, it stores the incoming headers so that they can be accessed...

published 3y ago modified 2mo ago also EUVD-2023-41865 , GHSA-99j9-jf36-9747 , JLSEC-2026-1342

cvss
7.5
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
56.2%
EPSS 56.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 99%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

When curl retrieves an HTTP response, it stores the incoming headers so that they can be accessed later via the libcurl headers API.

However, curl did not have a limit in how many or how large headers it would accept in a response, allowing a malicious server to stream an endless series of headers and eventually cause curl to run out of heap memory.

Patch / fix

  • julia LibCURL_jll 8.4.0+0
  • haxx curl 8.3.0
  • microsoft windows_10_1809 10.0.17763.5122
  • microsoft windows_10_21h2 10.0.19044.3693
  • microsoft windows_10_22h2 10.0.19045.3693
  • microsoft windows_11_21h2 10.0.22000.2600
  • microsoft windows_11_22h2 10.0.22621.2715
  • microsoft windows_11_23h2 10.0.22631.2715
  • microsoft windows_server_2019 10.0.17763.5122
  • microsoft windows_server_2022 10.0.20348.2113
  • curl Debian 12 7.88.1-10+deb12u3
  • curl Debian 14, Debian 13 8.3.0-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2023-38039

  • curl Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 8.2.1-1ubuntu3

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2023-38039

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • jbcs-httpd24-curl jboss core services 1 8.4.0-2.el7jbcs
  • jbcs-httpd24-curl jboss core services 1 8.4.0-2.el8jbcs
  • jbcs-httpd24-mod_jk jboss core services 1 1.2.49-1.redhat_1.el7jbcs
  • jbcs-httpd24-mod_jk jboss core services 1 1.2.49-1.redhat_1.el8jbcs
  • jbcs-httpd24-libcurl jboss core services 1 8.4.0-2.el7jbcs
  • jbcs-httpd24-libcurl jboss core services 1 8.4.0-2.el8jbcs
  • jbcs-httpd24-openssl jboss core services 1 1:1.1.1k-16.el7jbcs
  • jbcs-httpd24-openssl jboss core services 1 1:1.1.1k-16.el8jbcs

red hat advisories RHSA-2023:7625

  • curl SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP5, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP4, SLE Micro 5.4 +3 more 8.0.1-150400.5.29.1
  • curl SLES for SAP 12 SP5, SLES 12 SP5, SLE Software Development Kit 12 SP5 8.0.1-11.71.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2023:3823-1SUSE-SU-2023:3692-1

  • curl openSUSE Tumbleweed 8.3.0-1.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:13230-1

  • curl Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 +7 more 8.3.0-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2023-38039

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • mysql CBL-Mariner 2.0 8.0.35-1
  • curl CBL-Mariner 2.0 8.3.0-1
  • tensorflow Azure Linux 3.0 2.16.1-1

azure linux advisories AZL-28833AZL-29698AZL-38341

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

Is CVE-2023-38039 in your dependencies? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.

Check with Fencer

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2023-38039 updated cvss 7.5

curl: out of heap memory issue due to missing limit on header quantity

  • Red Hat JBoss Core Services
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2023:7626
  • Red Hat JBoss Core Services on RHEL 7 Server jbcs-httpd24-curl 8.4.0-2.el7jbcs, jbcs-httpd24-libcurl 8.4.0-2.el7jbcs Red Hat JBoss Core Services on RHEL 8 jbcs-httpd24-curl 8.4.0-2.el8jbcs, jbcs-httpd24-libcurl 8.4.0-2.el8jbcs
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2023:7625
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 curl, libcurl Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 curl, libcurl Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 curl, libcurl, libcurl-minimal Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 curl, libcurl, curl-minimal, libcurl-minimal Red Hat JBoss Core Services on RHEL 7 Server jbcs-httpd24-httpd 2.4.57-7.el7jbcs, jbcs-httpd24-mod_md 2.4.24-2.el7jbcs, jbcs-httpd24-mod_ssl 2.4.57-7.el7jbcs, jbcs-httpd24-mod_ldap 2.4.57-7.el7jbcs, jbcs-httpd24-openssl 1.1.1k-16.el7jbcs, jbcs-httpd24-apr-util 1.6.1-103.el7jbcs, +21 more Red Hat JBoss Core Services on RHEL 8 jbcs-httpd24-httpd 2.4.57-7.el8jbcs, jbcs-httpd24-mod_md 2.4.24-2.el8jbcs, jbcs-httpd24-mod_ssl 2.4.57-7.el8jbcs, jbcs-httpd24-mod_ldap 2.4.57-7.el8jbcs, jbcs-httpd24-openssl 1.1.1k-16.el8jbcs, jbcs-httpd24-apr-util 1.6.1-103.el8jbcs, +21 more
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

cisa ICSA-24-137-07 updated cvss 7.5

Siemens SIMATIC RTLS Locating Manager

  • Siemens SIMATIC RTLS Locating Manager (6GT2780-0DA00) <V3.0.1.1 Siemens SIMATIC RTLS Locating Manager (6GT2780-0DA10) <V3.0.1.1 Siemens SIMATIC RTLS Locating Manager (6GT2780-0DA20) <V3.0.1.1 Siemens SIMATIC RTLS Locating Manager (6GT2780-0DA30) <V3.0.1.1 Siemens SIMATIC RTLS Locating Manager (6GT2780-1EA10) <V3.0.1.1 Siemens SIMATIC RTLS Locating Manager (6GT2780-1EA20) <V3.0.1.1
    +1 more products
    Siemens SIMATIC RTLS Locating Manager (6GT2780-1EA30) <V3.0.1.1
    affected: fixed in V3.0.1.1, mitigation

Facts from CISA's republication of the vendor's own advisory (CSAF); the linked advisory is the authoritative source. CISA notification · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
Proof of concept is public
Automatable
yes
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
last yr.

Exploit prediction

56.21% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 99% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-14).

Exploits and checks

  • hackerone.com https://hackerone.com/reports/2072338 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CISA ADP 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CNA 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
OSV 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
julia LibCURL_jll
>=7.84.0+0, <8.4.0+0
8.4.0+0

Affected products

  • curl curl

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-770 Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.