CVE-2023-38712

An issue was discovered in Libreswan 3.x and 4.x before 4.12. When an IKEv1 ISAKMP SA Informational Exchange packet contains a Delete/Notify payload followed by further Notifies that act on the ISAKMP SA, such as a duplicated Delete/Notify message, a NULL pointer dereference on the deleted state causes the pluto daemon to crash and restart.

Published: 2023-08-25 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2023-38712 is rated Low Risk (34.1/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.08%). Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2023-38712

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-05-06 0.04% 0.08% +0.03%
2 2025-11-21 0.24% 0.04% -0.20%
3 2025-11-18 — 0.24% —

Full EPSS history (9 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2023-38712

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
6.5 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
 2.8 3.6 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-38712

OS Trackers for CVE-2023-38712

vendor priority summary link
alpine — CVE-2023-38712: 1 source package rows (libreswan); 14 state rows across 6 repos (3.18-community, 3.19-community, 3.20-community, 3.21-community, 3.22-community, edge-community); fixed 5, open 9. https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2023-38712
debian end-of-life CVE-2023-38712 end-of-life priority: Debian including 1 source packages (libreswan), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 3, open 2. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2023-38712
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-38712
ubuntu medium CVE-2023-38712 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (libreswan), 12 status rows across 12 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): ignored 6, needs-triage 6. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2023-38712

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-38712

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
libreswan libreswan >= 3.0, < 4.0 cpe:2.3:a:libreswan:libreswan:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
libreswan libreswan >= 4.0, < 4.12 cpe:2.3:a:libreswan:libreswan:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2023-38712

cvelogic Threat Intelligence