CVE-2023-42364

Exp

A use-after-free vulnerability in BusyBox v.1.36.1 allows attackers to cause a denial of service via a crafted awk pattern in the awk.c evaluate function.

Published: 2023-11-27 Last update: 2025-11-03 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2023-42364 is rated Exploit Available (50/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.03%). 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.

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

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2023-42364

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2023-42364

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 2025-11-21 0.08% 0.03% -0.04%
2 2025-11-18 0.03% 0.08% +0.05%
3 2025-04-15 — 0.03% —

Full EPSS history (6 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2023-42364

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.5 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
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:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
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.
 1.8 3.6 [email protected]
5.5 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
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:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
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.
 1.8 3.6 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-42364

OS Trackers for CVE-2023-42364

vendor priority summary link
alpine — CVE-2023-42364: 1 source package rows (busybox); 21 state rows across 7 repos (3.17-main, 3.18-main, 3.19-main, 3.20-main, 3.21-main, 3.22-main, edge-main); fixed 11, open 10. https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2023-42364
debian not yet assigned CVE-2023-42364 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (busybox), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2023-42364
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-42364
suse medium CVE-2023-42364 severity moderate: SUSE including 129 source package names (15.6.39.1:busybox-1.37.0-150500.10.11.1, 15.6.39.1:busybox-adduser-1.37.0-150500.7.7.2, …), 155 product×package rows across 26 product lines (Container bci/bci-busybox, Container suse/sl-micro/6.0/baremetal-iso-image, … (26 product lines)): Fixed 155. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-42364/
ubuntu medium CVE-2023-42364 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (busybox), 12 status rows across 12 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): not-affected 5, released 4, ignored 2, needs-triage 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2023-42364

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-42364

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
busybox busybox 1.36.1 cpe:2.3:a:busybox:busybox:1.36.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2023-42364

cvelogic Threat Intelligence