CVE-2022-38153
mediumpriority · track · 25EPSS 0.025 · 85 %ileEUUSEPSS · scored 2026-10-28
An issue was discovered in wolfSSL before 5.5.0 (when --enable-session-ticket is used); however, only version 5.3.0 is exploitable. Man-in-the-middle attackers or a malicious server can crash TLS 1.2 clients during a handshake. If an attacker injects a large ticket (more than 256 bytes) into a NewSessionTicket message in a TLS 1.2 handshake, and the client has a non-empty session cache, the session cache frees a pointer that points to unallocated memory, causing the client to crash with a "free(): invalid pointer" message. NOTE: It is likely that this is also exploitable during TLS 1.3 handshakes between a client and a malicious server. With TLS 1.3, it is not possible to exploit this as a man-in-the-middle.
cvss
Technical severity, 0–10. One row per scoring source.
base score 0–10 · higher = more severe · hover a vector to decode
weaknesses
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affected products (2)
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also known as (3)
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sources
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references (22)
External citations — patches, advisories, analysis.
- http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2023/Jan/8cnnvd
- https://blog.trailofbits.com/2023/01/12/wolfssl-vulnerabilities-tlspuffin-fuzzing-ssh/cnnvd
- https://cxsecurity.com/cveshow/CVE-2022-38153/cnnvd
- https://github.com/trailofbits/tlspuffincnnvd
- https://github.com/wolfSSL/wolfssl/pull/5476cnnvd
- https://github.com/wolfSSL/wolfssl/releasescnnvd
- https://packetstormsecurity.com/files/170605/wolfSSL-5.3.0-Denial-Of-Service.htmlcnnvd
- https://www.wolfssl.com/docs/security-vulnerabilities/cnnvd
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