#VU82954 Resource exhaustion in Vault and Vault Enterprise - CVE-2023-5954

Vulnerability identifier: #VU82954

Vulnerability risk: Medium

CVSSv4.0: 6.6 [CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:U/U:Green]

CVE-ID: CVE-2023-5954

CWE-ID: CWE-400

Exploitation vector: Network

Exploit availability: No

Vulnerable software:
Vault
Web applications / Modules and components for CMS
Vault Enterprise
Web applications / Modules and components for CMS

Vendor: HashiCorp

Description

The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to perform a denial of service (DoS) attack.

The vulnerability exists due to application does not properly control consumption of internal resources when handling policy requests. A remote attacker can send multiple requests to the application, which trigger policy checks and consume large amounts of memory, leading to a denial of service condition.

Mitigation
Install updates from vendor's website.

Vulnerable software versions

Vault: 1.13.0 - 1.15.1

Vault Enterprise: 1.13.0 - 1.15.1

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External links
https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/hcsec-2023-33-vault-requests-triggering-policy-checks-may-lead-to-unbounded-memory-consumption/59926

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Q & A

Can this vulnerability be exploited remotely?

Yes. This vulnerability can be exploited by a remote non-authenticated attacker via the Internet.

Is there known malware, which exploits this vulnerability?

No. We are not aware of malware exploiting this vulnerability.