# CVE-2023-29973: Denial of service in n/a

> Attackers can create unlimited malicious users due to missing rate limits, potentially exhausting resources on pfSense firewalls.

- **Severity:** Medium 4.9 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** An administrator
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 24 Oct 2023
- **Updated:** 17 Sep 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-q5cp-3jrf-3q9p

## What is CVE-2023-29973?

CVE-2023-29973 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 24 Oct 2023. An attacker needs administrator access to exploit it, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Pfsense CE version 2.6.0 is vulnerable to No rate limit which can lead to an attacker creating multiple malicious users in firewall.

Weakness: CWE-770 (Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-29973?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Pfsense Pfsense.

## How do I fix CVE-2023-29973?

No fix has been published for CVE-2023-29973 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2023-29973 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-29973 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in n/a

- [CVE-2025-69691](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-69691/): Code injection in n/a (critical 9.9)
- [CVE-2023-29974](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-29974/): Weak cryptography in n/a (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2025-69690](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-69690/): Deserialization in n/a (critical 9.1)
- [CVE-2021-41282](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-41282/): Code injection in n/a (high 8.8)
- [CVE-2016-10709](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2016-10709/): Command injection in n/a (high 8.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2023-29973 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-29973 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 24 Oct 2023. An attacker needs administrator access to exploit it, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-29973 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: n/a. 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-2023-29973/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-29973/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-29973
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-29973
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-29973

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-29973/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.