CVE-2023-0217 NULL dereference validating DSA public key

What is CVE-2023-0217?

CVE-2023-0217 is a high-severity 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

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.

Weakness: CWE-476

Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-0217?

3 open source packages ship an affected version, including openssl-src. It affects 1 product.

Products include Openssl Openssl.

How do I fix CVE-2023-0217?

Upgrade openssl-src to 300.0.12 or later.

Is CVE-2023-0217 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-0217 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-2023-0217, CLEANSTART-2026-PU03712, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-0217, GHSA-vxrh-cpg7-8vjr, RUSTSEC-2023-0012, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-0217.