CVE-2023-0401NULL dereference during PKCS7 data verification
- 7.5HighCVSS base score
- 1.8%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 21% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- NonePublic exploitsnone known yet
Description
A NULL pointer can be dereferenced when signatures are being verified on PKCS7 signed or signedAndEnveloped data. In case the hash algorithm used for the signature is known to the OpenSSL library but the implementation of the hash algorithm is not available the digest initialization will fail. There is a missing check for the return value from the initialization function which later leads to invalid usage of the digest API most likely leading to a crash. The unavailability of an algorithm can be caused by using FIPS enabled configuration of providers or more commonly by not loading the legacy provider. PKCS7 data is processed by the SMIME library calls and also by the time stamp (TS) library calls. The TLS implementation in OpenSSL does not call these functions however third party applications would be affected if they call these functions to verify signatures on untrusted data.
Timeline
ID reserved
By openssl
- 20 days later
· 20 days later
Published
- 3 years later
· 3 years later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| CISA-ADPADP (enrichment) | 3.1 | High7.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |
| NVDNVD · Modified | 3.1 | High7.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 1.8% · top 21% of all CVEs (12 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: none · Automatable: yes · Technical impact: partial
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: High 7.5.
Affected products
Affected packages
From reviewed advisories of the GitHub Advisory Database.
- crates.ioopenssl-srcGHSA-vrh7-x64v-7vxq (opens in a new tab)
References
References4
- OpenSSL Advisory (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_transferred
- 3.0.8 git commit (opens in a new tab)patchx_transferred
- https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202402-08 (opens in a new tab)x_transferred
- https://psirt.global.sonicwall.com/vuln-detail/SNWLID-2023-0003 (opens in a new tab)
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2023-0803 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisory GHSA-vrh7-x64v-7vxq (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2023-0401)Record last updated .