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NULL Pointer Dereference

CVE-2023-0217

Severity High
Score 7.5/10

Summary

An invalid pointer dereference on read can be triggered when an application tries to check a malformed DSA public key by the "EVP_PKEY_public_check()" function. This will most likely lead to an application crash. This function can be called on public keys supplied from untrusted sources which could allow an attacker to cause a denial of service attack. The TLS implementation in OpenSSL does not call this function but applications might call the function if there are additional security requirements imposed by standards such as FIPS 140-3. This issue affects OpenSSL versions 3.0.x prior to 3.0.8.

  • LOW
  • NETWORK
  • NONE
  • UNCHANGED
  • NONE
  • NONE
  • NONE
  • HIGH

CWE-476 - NULL Pointer Dereference

A NULL pointer dereference occurs when the application dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid, but is NULL, typically causing a crash or exit.

Advisory Timeline

  • Published