# CVE-2023-2226: Velociraptor crashes while parsing some malformed PE or OLE files.

> An attacker can crash the Velociraptor service by introducing malformed PE or OLE files during artifact collection, causing a denial of service.

- **Severity:** Low 3.3 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** A user has to click or open something
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 21 Apr 2023
- **Updated:** 4 Feb 2025
- **Also known as:** GHSA-97vg-58wg-32x4

## What is CVE-2023-2226?

CVE-2023-2226 is a low-severity denial of service vulnerability in Rapid7 Velociraptor, published on 21 Apr 2023. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

### Official description

Due to insufficient validation in the PE and OLE parsers in Rapid7's Velociraptor versions earlier than 0.6.8 allows attacker to crash Velociraptor during parsing of maliciously malformed files. 

For this attack to succeed, the attacker needs to be able to introduce malicious files to the system at the same time that Velociraptor attempts to collect any artifacts that attempt to parse PE files, Authenticode signatures, or OLE files. After crashing, the Velociraptor service will restart and it will still be possible to collect other artifacts.

Weakness: CWE-125 (Out-of-bounds Read)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-2226?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Rapid7 Velociraptor.

## How do I fix CVE-2023-2226?

No fix has been published for CVE-2023-2226 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2023-2226 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-2226 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Rapid7 Velociraptor

- [CVE-2023-0242](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-0242/): Insufficient permission check in the VQL copy() function (high 8.8)
- [CVE-2023-5950](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-5950/): Rapid7 Velociraptor Reflected XSS (high 8.6)
- [CVE-2026-5329](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-5329/): Rapid7 Velociraptor Improper Input Validation in Client Message Handler (high 8.5)
- [CVE-2026-6290](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-6290/): Velociraptor Query() Plugin Misapplies Permissions To Orgs (high 8.0)
- [CVE-2025-14728](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-14728/): Rapid7 Velociraptor Directory Traversal Vulnerability (medium 6.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2023-2226 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-2226 is a low-severity denial of service vulnerability in Rapid7 Velociraptor, published on 21 Apr 2023. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-2226 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Rapid7 Velociraptor. 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-2023-2226/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-2226/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-2226
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-2226
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-2226

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-2226/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.