CVE-2023-42970

A use-after-free issue was addressed with improved memory management. This issue is fixed in iOS 17 and iPadOS 17, macOS Sonoma 14, watchOS 10, tvOS 17, Safari 17. Processing web content may lead to arbitrary code execution.

Published: 2025-04-11 Last update: 2025-04-29 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Analyzed，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2023-42970 is rated Moderate Risk (50.7/100): CVSS High severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.22%). Review affected assets and schedule remediation.

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-2023-42970

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 2026-05-20 0.47% 0.22% -0.24%
2 2026-02-05 0.15% 0.47% +0.31%
3 2026-01-05 — 0.15% —

Full EPSS history (9 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2023-42970

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
8.8 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/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: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:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
 2.8 5.9 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-42970

OS Trackers for CVE-2023-42970

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2023-42970 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 2 source packages (webkit2gtk, wpewebkit), 10 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 8, open 2. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2023-42970
redhat high — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-42970
suse high CVE-2023-42970 severity important: SUSE including 116 source package names (WebKitGTK-4.0-lang-2.48.2-150400.4.119.1, WebKitGTK-4.0-lang-2.48.2-150600.12.40.2, …), 446 product×package rows across 37 product lines (SUSE Enterprise Storage 7.1, SUSE Liberty Linux 8, … (37 product lines)): Fixed 375, Known Not Affected 71. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-42970/
ubuntu medium CVE-2023-42970 medium priority: Ubuntu including 5 source packages (qtwebkit-opensource-src, qtwebkit-source, webkit2gtk, webkitgtk, wpewebkit), 38 status rows across 8 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, oracular, plucky, upstream, xenial): ignored 15, DNE 14, needs-triage 4, not-affected 3, released 2. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2023-42970

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-42970

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
apple safari < 17.0 cpe:2.3:a:apple:safari:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
apple ipados < 17.0 cpe:2.3:o:apple:ipados:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
apple iphone_os < 17.0 cpe:2.3:o:apple:iphone_os:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
apple macos < 14.0 cpe:2.3:o:apple:macos:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
apple tvos < 17.0 cpe:2.3:o:apple:tvos:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
apple watchos < 10.0 cpe:2.3:o:apple:watchos:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2023-42970

URL Tags
https://support.apple.com/en-us/120330 Release Notes Vendor Advisory
https://support.apple.com/en-us/120947 Release Notes Vendor Advisory
https://support.apple.com/en-us/120948 Release Notes Vendor Advisory
https://support.apple.com/en-us/120949 Release Notes Vendor Advisory
https://support.apple.com/en-us/120950 Release Notes Vendor Advisory
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