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CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2023-4692

Heap-based Buffer Overflow

Published: Oct 25, 2023 | Modified: Nov 04, 2025
CVSS 3.x
7.8
HIGH
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CVSS 2.x
RedHat/V2
RedHat/V3
7.5 LOW
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Ubuntu
MEDIUM
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Additional information
NVDhttps://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-4692
CWEhttps://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/122.html

An out-of-bounds write flaw was found in grub2s NTFS filesystem driver. This issue may allow an attacker to present a specially crafted NTFS filesystem image, leading to grubs heap metadata corruption. In some circumstances, the attack may also corrupt the UEFI firmware heap metadata. As a result, arbitrary code execution and secure boot protection bypass may be achieved.

Weakness

A heap overflow condition is a buffer overflow, where the buffer that can be overwritten is allocated in the heap portion of memory, generally meaning that the buffer was allocated using a routine such as malloc().

Affected Software

NameVendorStart VersionEnd Version
Grub2Gnu*2.12 (excluding)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8RedHatgrub2-1:2.02-156.el8*
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9RedHatgrub2-1:2.06-77.el9*
Grub2Ubuntubionic*
Grub2Ubuntutrusty*
Grub2Ubuntuupstream*
Grub2Ubuntuxenial*
Grub2-signedUbuntubionic*
Grub2-signedUbuntudevel*
Grub2-signedUbuntuesm-infra-legacy/trusty*
Grub2-signedUbuntuesm-infra/focal*
Grub2-signedUbuntufocal*
Grub2-signedUbuntujammy*
Grub2-signedUbuntulunar*
Grub2-signedUbuntumantic*
Grub2-signedUbuntunoble*
Grub2-signedUbuntuoracular*
Grub2-signedUbuntuplucky*
Grub2-signedUbuntuquesting*
Grub2-signedUbuntutrusty*
Grub2-signedUbuntutrusty/esm*
Grub2-signedUbuntuxenial*
Grub2-unsignedUbuntubionic*
Grub2-unsignedUbuntudevel*
Grub2-unsignedUbuntuesm-infra/focal*
Grub2-unsignedUbuntufocal*
Grub2-unsignedUbuntujammy*
Grub2-unsignedUbuntulunar*
Grub2-unsignedUbuntumantic*
Grub2-unsignedUbuntunoble*
Grub2-unsignedUbuntuoracular*
Grub2-unsignedUbuntuplucky*
Grub2-unsignedUbuntuquesting*
Grub2-unsignedUbuntutrusty*
Grub2-unsignedUbuntuxenial*

Potential Mitigations

  • Use automatic buffer overflow detection mechanisms that are offered by certain compilers or compiler extensions. Examples include: the Microsoft Visual Studio /GS flag, Fedora/Red Hat FORTIFY_SOURCE GCC flag, StackGuard, and ProPolice, which provide various mechanisms including canary-based detection and range/index checking.
  • D3-SFCV (Stack Frame Canary Validation) from D3FEND [REF-1334] discusses canary-based detection in detail.
  • Run or compile the software using features or extensions that randomly arrange the positions of a program’s executable and libraries in memory. Because this makes the addresses unpredictable, it can prevent an attacker from reliably jumping to exploitable code.
  • Examples include Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) [REF-58] [REF-60] and Position-Independent Executables (PIE) [REF-64]. Imported modules may be similarly realigned if their default memory addresses conflict with other modules, in a process known as “rebasing” (for Windows) and “prelinking” (for Linux) [REF-1332] using randomly generated addresses. ASLR for libraries cannot be used in conjunction with prelink since it would require relocating the libraries at run-time, defeating the whole purpose of prelinking.
  • For more information on these techniques see D3-SAOR (Segment Address Offset Randomization) from D3FEND [REF-1335].

References

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