CVE-2023-3966 | Openvswsitch: ovs-vswitch fails to recover after malformed geneve metadata packet

A flaw was found in Open vSwitch where multiple versions are vulnerable to crafted Geneve packets, which may result in a denial of service and invalid memory accesses. Triggering this issue requires that hardware offloading via the netlink path is enabled.

Published: 2024-02-22 Last update: 2025-05-16 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Analyzed，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2023-3966 is rated Low Risk (34.9/100): CVSS High severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.05%). 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-2023-3966

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 2026-01-27 0.06% 0.05% -0.01%
2 2026-01-25 0.04% 0.06% +0.01%
3 2025-11-21 — 0.04% —

Full EPSS history (19 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2023-3966

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.5 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/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:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
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.
 3.9 3.6 [email protected]
7.5 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/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:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
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.
 3.9 3.6 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-3966

OS Trackers for CVE-2023-3966

vendor priority summary link
alpine — CVE-2023-3966: 1 source package rows (openvswitch); 27 state rows across 5 repos (3.19-community, 3.20-community, 3.21-community, 3.22-community, edge-community); fixed 10, open 17. https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2023-3966
debian not yet assigned CVE-2023-3966 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (openvswitch), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2023-3966
redhat high — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-3966
suse high CVE-2023-3966 severity important: SUSE including 160 source package names (latest:selinux-policy-20230523+git27.6fee49569-1.1, latest:selinux-policy-targeted-20230523+git27.6fee49569-1.1, …), 567 product×package rows across 60 product lines (Container suse/sl-micro/6.0/baremetal-os-container, Image SLE-Micro, … (60 product lines)): Fixed 531, Known Not Affected 36. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-3966/
ubuntu medium CVE-2023-3966 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (openvswitch), 8 status rows across 8 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, mantic, noble, trusty, upstream, xenial): released 5, not-affected 2, ignored 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2023-3966

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-3966

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
openvswitch openvswitch < 3.1.0 cpe:2.3:a:openvswitch:openvswitch:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
fedoraproject fedora 39 cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:39:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
fedoraproject fedora 40 cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:40:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2023-3966

cvelogic Threat Intelligence