# CVE-2023-1894: Denial of service in Puppet Enterprise

> Attackers can cause denial of service in Puppet Server by submitting crafted certificate names that trigger inefficient regular expression processing.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.3 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 4 May 2023
- **Updated:** 29 Jan 2025
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2023-1894, GHSA-x5cv-mqxq-8q96, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-1894

## What is CVE-2023-1894?

CVE-2023-1894 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Puppet Puppet Enterprise, published on 4 May 2023. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

A Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) issue was discovered in Puppet Server 7.9.2 certificate validation. An issue related to specifically crafted certificate names significantly slowed down server operations.

Weakness: CWE-1333 (Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-1894?

It affects 2 products.


Products: Puppet Puppet Enterprise, Puppet Puppet Server.

## How do I fix CVE-2023-1894?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2023-1894 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-1894 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Puppet Puppet Enterprise

- [CVE-2023-2530](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-2530/): Privilege escalation in Puppet Enterprise (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2019-10694](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-10694/): Hardcoded credentials in Puppet Enterprise (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2018-11749](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-11749/): Information disclosure in Puppet Enterprise (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2021-27020](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-27020/): Other in Puppet Enterprise (high 8.8)
- [CVE-2015-5686](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2015-5686/): Cross-site request forgery in n/a (high 8.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2023-1894 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-1894 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Puppet Puppet Enterprise, published on 4 May 2023. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-1894 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Puppet Puppet Enterprise. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-1894/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-1894/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-1894
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-1894
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-1894

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-1894/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.