CVE-2023-40594 Denial of Service (DoS) via the ‘printf’ Search Function
An attacker can cause a denial of service against Splunk Enterprise instances by exploiting the printf SPL function.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- None listed
What is CVE-2023-40594?
CVE-2023-40594 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Splunk Splunk, published on 30 Aug 2023. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
In Splunk Enterprise versions lower than 8.2.12, 9.0.6, and 9.1.1, an attacker can use the `printf` SPL function to perform a denial of service (DoS) against the Splunk Enterprise instance.
Weakness: CWE-400
Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-40594?
It affects 2 products.
Products include Splunk Splunk, Splunk Splunk Cloud Platform.
How do I fix CVE-2023-40594?
No fix has been published for CVE-2023-40594 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2023-40594 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-40594 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Splunk Splunk
- CVE-2026-20253 Splunk Enterprise Missing Authentication for Critical Function
- CVE-2026-76268 Missing Authentication for Critical Function in the Patroni REST API in Splunk Enterprise
- CVE-2026-76284 Improper Neutralization in Splunk Enterprise
- CVE-2026-76285 Improper Adherence to Coding Standards in Splunk Enterprise
- CVE-2017-17067 Auth bypass in n/a
Sources
Also known as GHSA-3mjg-59rv-9hm8.