# CVE-2023-42757: Denial of service in n/a

> Attackers can cause Process Explorer to become unavailable by launching a specially named executable, disrupting security analysis workflows.

- **Severity:** Medium 4.2 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** An administrator
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** A user has to click or open something
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 7 May 2024
- **Updated:** 26 Mar 2025
- **Also known as:** GHSA-4996-x4q8-5x37

## What is CVE-2023-42757?

CVE-2023-42757 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 7 May 2024. 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

Process Explorer before 17.04 allows attackers to make it functionally unavailable (a denial of service for analysis) by renaming an executable file to a new extensionless 255-character name and launching it with NtCreateUserProcess. This can occur through an issue in wcscat_s error handling.

Weakness: CWE-120 (Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-42757?


## How do I fix CVE-2023-42757?

No fix has been published for CVE-2023-42757 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2023-42757 being exploited?

It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2023-42757 exists.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2023-42757 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-42757 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 7 May 2024. 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: It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2023-42757 exists.

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-2023-42757/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-42757/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-42757
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-42757
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-42757

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-42757/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.