CVE-2023-23916An allocation of resources without limits or throttling vulnerability exists in curl <v7.88.0 based on the "chained" HTTP compression…
- 6.5MediumCVSS base score
- 1.7%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 22% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- YesPublic exploitsa reference or SSVC says so
Description
An allocation of resources without limits or throttling vulnerability exists in curl <v7.88.0 based on the "chained" HTTP compression algorithms, meaning that a server response can be compressed multiple times and potentially with differentalgorithms. The number of acceptable "links" in this "decompression chain" wascapped, but the cap was implemented on a per-header basis allowing a maliciousserver to insert a virtually unlimited number of compression steps simply byusing many headers. The use of such a decompression chain could result in a "malloc bomb", making curl end up spending enormous amounts of allocated heap memory, or trying to and returning out of memory errors.
Public exploit
An exploit or proof of concept is public: anyone can try it against an unpatched system. CISA's SSVC rates its exploitation: a proof of concept is public.
Timeline
ID reserved
By hackerone
- 35 days later
· 35 days later
Published
- 4 years later
· 4 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 | Medium6.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |
| NVDNVD · Modified | 3.1 | Medium6.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 1.7% · top 22% of all CVEs (12 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: poc · Automatable: no · Technical impact: partial
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Medium 6.5.
Affected products
https://github.com/curl/curl
- affected Fixed in 7.88.0
References
References7
- https://hackerone.com/reports/1826048 (opens in a new tab)x_transferred
- [debian-lts-announce] 20230224 [SECURITY] [DLA 3341-1] curl security update (opens in a new tab)mailing-listx_transferred
- FEDORA-2023-94df30cbec (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_transferred
- DSA-5365 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_transferred
- https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20230309-0006/ (opens in a new tab)x_transferred
- GLSA-202310-12 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_transferred
- https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-398330.html (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-2023-27998 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (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-2023-23916)Record last updated .