CVE-2023-0215 Use-after-free following BIO_new_NDEF

What is CVE-2023-0215?

CVE-2023-0215 is a high-severity use after free vulnerability in Openssl Openssl, published on 8 Feb 2023. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

Official 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.

Weakness: CWE-416

Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-0215?

5 open source packages ship an affected version, including openssl-src. It affects 2 products.

Products include Openssl Openssl, Stormshield Stormshield Management Center.

How do I fix CVE-2023-0215?

Upgrade openssl-src to a fixed version for your release line: 111.25.0 or 300.0.12.

Upgrade to the fixed version. These bugs are found with fuzzing and sanitisers and avoided by memory-safe languages. More about Use after free.

Is CVE-2023-0215 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-0215 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Openssl Openssl

• CVE-2009-3245 Null dereference in n/a Critical 10.0
• CVE-2006-3738 Memory corruption in n/a Critical 10.0
• CVE-2026-63073 Untrusted Sender DN Used as Format String in CMP Response Validation Critical 9.8
• CVE-2016-6309 Use after free in n/a Critical 9.8
• CVE-2016-0799 Integer overflow in n/a Critical 9.8

All Openssl Openssl vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as ALPINE-CVE-2023-0215, AZL-13301, AZL-13352, AZL-37641, AZL-37898, CLEANSTART-2026-JM87342 and 5 more.