Use-after-free following BIO_new_NDEF (CVE-2023-0215)
Published Last modified Sources: BSI, Siemens ProductCERT, Debian, Ubuntu, CVE.org, OSV
What is affected, what to do
The public API function BIO_new_NDEF is a helper function used for streaming ASN.1 data via a BIO. It is primarily used internally to OpenSSL to support the SMIME, CMS and PKCS7 streaming capabilities, but may also be called directly by end user applications.
Update OpenSSL to version 3.0.8, OpenSSL to version 1.1.1t, OpenSSL to version 1.0.2zg.
- Affected
- OpenSSL
lt 3.0.0..3.0.8 - OpenSSL
lt 1.1.1..1.1.1t - OpenSSL
lt 1.0.2..1.0.2zg
- OpenSSL
- Fixed in
- OpenSSL
3.0.8 - OpenSSL
1.1.1t - OpenSSL
1.0.2zg
- OpenSSL
Not sure whether and how you are affected? Ask a question about this vulnerability
Metrics
7.5
Priority
XIEM Effective CVSS: highest available CVSS rating from NVD and vendor data.
Source: NVD, CVSS v3
7.5
CVSS v3
Severity High on the scale from 0 to 10.
Source: BSI, Siemens ProductCERT, Debian, Ubuntu, CVE.org, OSV
5.0 %
EPSS score
Moderate — model estimates 1-10% exploitation likelihood.
Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 92.2
Show all metrics
- Severity
- High
Priority (0–325)
The priority score is a consolidated metric that condenses several individual signals into a single, action-guiding ranking: technical severity (CVSS), exploitation likelihood (EPSS), known-exploited status (KEV) and the context of the affected asset. The aim is to answer the only truly important question in vulnerability management: what first?
Read in glossary- 107.72 Methodology
Exploit maturity
An exploit is code or a technique that specifically uses a concrete vulnerability to force unintended behaviour — such as executing code or escalating privileges. It is the tool that turns a theoretical flaw into a practical attack.
Read in glossary- no public PoC known
XIEM Effective CVSS
XIEM® is the tiered managed-security operating model from NEOSEC and a registered trademark of NEOSEC GmbH. It extends classic SIEM — the central collection, normalisation and correlation of security-relevant events — with endpoint forensics, network visibility and deception technology, and consolidates them into three building tiers: Sentry, Orchestrate and Command.
Read in glossary- 7.5 Methodology
CVSS v3
CVSS is the globally established, open standard for assessing the technical severity of a vulnerability on a scale from 0 to 10. It describes how easily a flaw can be exploited and what damage it can cause — but not how likely its actual exploitation is. CVSS and the complementary EPSS deliberately answer different questions.
Read in glossary- 7.5
EPSS score
The EPSS score is the absolute model output for an individual vulnerability: the estimated probability of real-world exploitation within the next 30 days, expressed as a value between 0 and 1 (i.e. 0 % to 100 %). A score of 0.42 means „the model estimates a 42 % chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days“.
Read in glossary- 5.0 %
- Moderate — model estimates 1-10% exploitation likelihood.
EPSS percentile
The EPSS percentile is the relative position of a vulnerability within all EPSS-scored CVEs, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. A percentile of 0.90 means „this CVE has a higher EPSS score than 90 % of all other scored CVEs“. Unlike the EPSS score, it is not a probability — but a positioning within a ranking.
Read in glossary- 92.2
- Critical — this CVE ranks in the top fifth of all CVEs scored today (rank ≥ 80%).
KEV status
The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.
Read in glossary- —
- Published
- CISA assessment (SSVC)
- Exploitation: none known · automatable · Technical impact: partial
- Source: CISA Vulnrichment, as of 23 April 2025
CWE
CWE is a catalogue of typical weakness types in software and hardware — such as flawed input validation, unsafe memory handling or poor authentication. Where a CVE names a concrete vulnerability in a concrete product, a CWE describes the underlying class of defect.
Read in glossary- CWE-416
Detection rules
No NEOSEC detection rule is available for this vulnerability yet.
Classification under NIS2 and CRA
Rule-based classification from exploitation status and severity. It does not replace a case-by-case assessment.
NIS2
NIS2 is EU Directive (EU) 2022/2555 to raise the level of cybersecurity across the Union. It substantially broadens obligations compared with the first NIS directive: more sectors, mandatory risk management, staged reporting duties and personal accountability of senior management.
Read in glossary- High technical severity: assess and remediate the vulnerability in vulnerability handling under Art. 21(2)(e) NIS2 and document the decision.
CRA
The CRA is EU Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 setting horizontal cybersecurity requirements for „products with digital elements“ — from industrial controllers and software to connected consumer devices. For the first time manufacturers must ensure security across the entire product lifecycle, handle vulnerabilities and provide security updates.
Read in glossary- From 11.12.2027, Annex I Part II CRA requires manufacturers of affected products with digital elements to handle vulnerabilities without delay and provide security updates.
ISO/IEC 27001
ISO/IEC 27001 is the internationally leading standard for an information security management system (ISMS). It describes a risk-based, process-oriented framework to systematically plan, implement, review and improve information security.
Read in glossary- Control A.8.8, management of technical vulnerabilities: assess relevance to your systems, plan remediation and keep evidence.
Description
The public API function BIO_new_NDEF is a helper function used for streaming ASN.1 data via a BIO. It is primarily used internally to OpenSSL to support the SMIME, CMS and PKCS7 streaming capabilities, but may also be called directly by end user applications. The function receives a BIO from the caller, prepends a new BIO_f_asn1 filter BIO onto the front of it to form a BIO chain, and then returns the new head of the BIO chain to the caller. Under certain conditions, for example if a CMS recipient public key is invalid, the new filter BIO is freed and the function returns a NULL result indicating a failure. However, in this case, the BIO chain is not properly cleaned up and the BIO passed by the caller still retains internal pointers to the previously freed filter BIO. If the caller then goes on to call BIO_pop() on the BIO then a use-after-free will occur. This will most likely result in a crash. This scenario occurs directly in the internal function B64_write_ASN1() which may cause BIO_new_NDEF() to be called and will subsequently call BIO_pop() on the BIO. This internal function is in turn called by the public API functions PEM_write_bio_ASN1_stream, PEM_write_bio_CMS_stream, PEM_write_bio_PKCS7_stream, SMIME_write_ASN1, SMIME_write_CMS and SMIME_write_PKCS7. Other public API functions that may be impacted by this include i2d_ASN1_bio_stream, BIO_new_CMS, BIO_new_PKCS7, i2d_CMS_bio_stream and i2d_PKCS7_bio_stream. The OpenSSL cms and smime command line applications are similarly affected.
Source: BSI CSAF, BSI WID Portal, siemens_advisory, Debian Security Advisories, Ubuntu Security Notices, cvelistv5, NVD (NIST), OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affected products
The following versions are affected. Older releases of the same product line are also vulnerable unless stated otherwise.
| Affected versions | Fixed in | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenSSL | OpenSSL |
|
|
| openssl | openssl |
|
|
| stormshield | stormshield_management_center |
|
|
| Dell | ECS |
|
|
Vendors and products
Affected operating systems
| Linux | debian | openssl | bullseye |
| Linux | ubuntu | openssl | bionic |
| Linux | ubuntu | openssl | focal |
| Linux | ubuntu | openssl | jammy |
| Linux | ubuntu | openssl | kinetic |
Weakness classes (CWE)
CWE-416Use After Free
Variant
The product reuses or references memory after it has been freed. At some point afterward, the memory may be allocated again and saved in another pointer, while the original pointer references a location somewhere within the new allocation. Any operations using the original pointer are no longer valid because the memory "belongs" to the code that operates on the new pointer.
Entry at MITRE CWE-416
References & sources
- crates.iocrates/openssl-srcpackage
- rustsec.orgadvisories/RUSTSEC-2023-0009.htmladvisory
- openssl.orgOpenSSL Advisoryweb, Vendor advisory
- git.openssl.org3.0.8 git commitPatch
- git.openssl.org1.1.1t git commitPatch
- git.openssl.org1.0.2zg patch (premium)Patch
- security.netapp.comadvisory/ntap-20230427-0007
- security.netapp.comadvisory/ntap-20230427-0009
- security.gentoo.orgglsa/202402-08
- security.netapp.comadvisory/ntap-20240621-0006
- psirt.global.sonicwall.comvuln-detail/SNWLID-2023-0003
- NVD (NIST)vuln/detail/CVE-2023-0215advisory
- security.netapp.comadvisory/ntap-20230427-0007web
- security.netapp.comadvisory/ntap-20230427-0009web
- security.netapp.comadvisory/ntap-20240621-0006web
- Siemens ProductCERTproductcert/html/ssa-203374.html
- Siemens ProductCERTproductcert/html/ssa-794697.html
- Siemens ProductCERTproductcert/html/ssa-561322.html
- Siemens ProductCERTproductcert/html/ssa-398330.html
- Siemens ProductCERTproductcert/html/ssa-943925.html
Changes to this CVE
Who changed this CVE and when: NVD (analysis, affected products, CVSS), the CVE publisher (CNA) and additional providers such as CISA (ADP).
Record modifiedopenssl.org
New references:- https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=8818064ce3c3c0f1b740a5aaba2a987e75bfbafd
- https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=9816136fe31d92ace4037d5da5257f763aeeb4eb
- https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=c3829dd8825c654652201e16f8a0a0c46ee3f344
- https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202402-08
and 4 more references
Show 22 original changes
Individual changes of this event as published by NVD Type Action Before After Reference added —https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=8818064ce3c3c0f1b740a5aaba2a987e75bfbafdReference added —https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=9816136fe31d92ace4037d5da5257f763aeeb4ebReference added —https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=c3829dd8825c654652201e16f8a0a0c46ee3f344Reference added —https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202402-08Reference added —https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20230427-0007/Reference added —https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20230427-0009/Reference added —https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20240621-0006/Reference added —https://www.openssl.org/news/secadv/20230207.txtReference removed https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=8818064ce3c3c0f1b740a5aaba2a987e75bfbafd—Reference removed https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=9816136fe31d92ace4037d5da5257f763aeeb4eb—Reference removed https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=c3829dd8825c654652201e16f8a0a0c46ee3f344—Reference removed https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202402-08—Reference removed https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20230427-0007/—Reference removed https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20230427-0009/—Reference removed https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20240621-0006/—Reference removed https://www.openssl.org/news/secadv/20230207.txt—Reference type removed https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=8818064ce3c3c0f1b740a5aaba2a987e75bfbafd Types: Patch, Vendor Advisory—Reference type removed https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=9816136fe31d92ace4037d5da5257f763aeeb4eb Types: Patch, Vendor Advisory—Reference type removed https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=c3829dd8825c654652201e16f8a0a0c46ee3f344 Types: Patch, Vendor Advisory—Reference type removed https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20230427-0007/ Types: Third Party Advisory—Reference type removed https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20230427-0009/ Types: Third Party Advisory—Reference type removed https://www.openssl.org/news/secadv/20230207.txt Types: Vendor Advisory—Source identifier: openssl-security@openssl.org
Record modifiedCVE Program
New references:- https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=8818064ce3c3c0f1b740a5aaba2a987e75bfbafd
- https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=9816136fe31d92ace4037d5da5257f763aeeb4eb
- https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=c3829dd8825c654652201e16f8a0a0c46ee3f344
- https://psirt.global.sonicwall.com/vuln-detail/SNWLID-2023-0003
and 5 more references
Show 24 original changes
Individual changes of this event as published by NVD Type Action Before After Reference added —https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=8818064ce3c3c0f1b740a5aaba2a987e75bfbafdReference added —https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=9816136fe31d92ace4037d5da5257f763aeeb4ebReference added —https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=c3829dd8825c654652201e16f8a0a0c46ee3f344Reference added —https://psirt.global.sonicwall.com/vuln-detail/SNWLID-2023-0003Reference added —https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202402-08Reference added —https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20230427-0007/Reference added —https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20230427-0009/Reference added —https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20240621-0006/Reference added —https://www.openssl.org/news/secadv/20230207.txtReference removed https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=8818064ce3c3c0f1b740a5aaba2a987e75bfbafd—Reference removed https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=9816136fe31d92ace4037d5da5257f763aeeb4eb—Reference removed https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=c3829dd8825c654652201e16f8a0a0c46ee3f344—Reference removed https://psirt.global.sonicwall.com/vuln-detail/SNWLID-2023-0003—Reference removed https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202402-08—Reference removed https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20230427-0007/—Reference removed https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20230427-0009/—Reference removed https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20240621-0006/—Reference removed https://www.openssl.org/news/secadv/20230207.txt—Reference type removed https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=8818064ce3c3c0f1b740a5aaba2a987e75bfbafd Types: Patch, Vendor Advisory—Reference type removed https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=9816136fe31d92ace4037d5da5257f763aeeb4eb Types: Patch, Vendor Advisory—Reference type removed https://git.openssl.org/gitweb/?p=openssl.git;a=commitdiff;h=c3829dd8825c654652201e16f8a0a0c46ee3f344 Types: Patch, Vendor Advisory—Reference type removed https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20230427-0007/ Types: Third Party Advisory—Reference type removed https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20230427-0009/ Types: Third Party Advisory—Reference type removed https://www.openssl.org/news/secadv/20230207.txt Types: Vendor Advisory—Source identifier: af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108
Record modifiedSiemens ADP
Show 11 original changes
Individual changes of this event as published by NVD Type Action Before After Affected versions (publisher) added —New affected value received. <a href="https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/blob/main/cves/2023/0xxx/CVE-2023-0215.json">CVE-2023-0215</a>Reference added —https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-203374.htmlReference added —https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-337522.htmlReference added —https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-398330.htmlReference added —https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-556635.htmlReference added —https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-561322.htmlReference added —https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-625862.htmlReference added —https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-769027.htmlReference added —https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-794697.htmlReference added —https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-879734.htmlReference added —https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-943925.htmlSource identifier: 0b142b55-0307-4c5a-b3c9-f314f3fb7c5e
Embed badge
Show the severity and KEV status of this vulnerability on your site – with a link back here. The image is updated hourly.
<a href="https://intel.neosec.eu/en/cve/CVE-2023-0215"><img src="https://intel.neosec.eu/badge/cve/CVE-2023-0215.svg?lang=en" alt="CVE-2023-0215 – NEOSEC Intel" height="20"></a>