Medium severity6.5NVD Advisory· Published Feb 23, 2023· Updated Jun 17, 2026
CVE-2023-23916
CVE-2023-23916
Description
An allocation of resources without limits or throttling vulnerability exists in curl <v7.88.0 based on the "chained" HTTP compression algorithms, meaning that a server response can be compressed multiple times and potentially with differentalgorithms. The number of acceptable "links" in this "decompression chain" wascapped, but the cap was implemented on a per-header basis allowing a maliciousserver to insert a virtually unlimited number of compression steps simply byusing many headers. The use of such a decompression chain could result in a "malloc bomb", making curl end up spending enormous amounts of allocated heap memory, or trying to and returning out of memory errors.
AI Insight
LLM-synthesized narrative grounded in this CVE's description and references.
Affected products
27- osv-coords25 versionspkg:rpm/almalinux/curlpkg:rpm/almalinux/curl-minimalpkg:rpm/almalinux/libcurlpkg:rpm/almalinux/libcurl-develpkg:rpm/almalinux/libcurl-minimalpkg:rpm/opensuse/curl&distro=openSUSE%20Leap%2015.4pkg:rpm/opensuse/curl&distro=openSUSE%20Leap%20Micro%205.3pkg:rpm/opensuse/curl&distro=openSUSE%20Tumbleweedpkg:rpm/suse/curl&distro=SUSE%20Enterprise%20Storage%206pkg:rpm/suse/curl&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20High%20Performance%20Computing%2015%20SP1-LTSSpkg:rpm/suse/curl&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Micro%205.1pkg:rpm/suse/curl&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Micro%205.2pkg:rpm/suse/curl&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Micro%205.3pkg:rpm/suse/curl&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Module%20for%20Basesystem%2015%20SP4pkg:rpm/suse/curl&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Real%20Time%2015%20SP3pkg:rpm/suse/curl&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Server%2012%20SP4-ESPOSpkg:rpm/suse/curl&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Server%2012%20SP4-LTSSpkg:rpm/suse/curl&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Server%2012%20SP5pkg:rpm/suse/curl&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Server%2015%20SP1-LTSSpkg:rpm/suse/curl&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Server%20for%20SAP%20Applications%2012%20SP4pkg:rpm/suse/curl&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Server%20for%20SAP%20Applications%2012%20SP5pkg:rpm/suse/curl&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Server%20for%20SAP%20Applications%2015%20SP1pkg:rpm/suse/curl&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Software%20Development%20Kit%2012%20SP5pkg:rpm/suse/curl&distro=SUSE%20OpenStack%20Cloud%209pkg:rpm/suse/curl&distro=SUSE%20OpenStack%20Cloud%20Crowbar%209
< 7.61.1-25.el8_7.3+ 24 more
- (no CPE)range: < 7.61.1-25.el8_7.3
- (no CPE)range: < 7.76.1-19.el9_1.2
- (no CPE)range: < 7.61.1-25.el8_7.3
- (no CPE)range: < 7.61.1-25.el8_7.3
- (no CPE)range: < 7.61.1-25.el8_7.3
- (no CPE)range: < 7.79.1-150400.5.15.1
- (no CPE)range: < 7.79.1-150400.5.15.1
- (no CPE)range: < 7.88.1-1.1
- (no CPE)range: < 7.60.0-150000.51.1
- (no CPE)range: < 7.60.0-150000.51.1
- (no CPE)range: < 7.66.0-150200.4.52.1
- (no CPE)range: < 7.66.0-150200.4.52.1
- (no CPE)range: < 7.79.1-150400.5.15.1
- (no CPE)range: < 7.79.1-150400.5.15.1
- (no CPE)range: < 7.66.0-150200.4.52.1
- (no CPE)range: < 7.60.0-4.56.1
- (no CPE)range: < 7.60.0-4.56.1
- (no CPE)range: < 7.60.0-11.55.1
- (no CPE)range: < 7.60.0-150000.51.1
- (no CPE)range: < 7.60.0-4.56.1
- (no CPE)range: < 7.60.0-11.55.1
- (no CPE)range: < 7.60.0-150000.51.1
- (no CPE)range: < 7.60.0-11.55.1
- (no CPE)range: < 7.60.0-4.56.1
- (no CPE)range: < 7.60.0-4.56.1
Patches
Vulnerability mechanics
References
6- hackerone.com/reports/1826048nvdExploitIssue Tracking
- lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2023/02/msg00035.htmlnvdMailing ListThird Party Advisory
- lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/BQKE6TXYDHOTFHLTBZ5X73GTKI7II5KO/nvdMailing ListThird Party Advisory
- security.gentoo.org/glsa/202310-12nvdThird Party Advisory
- security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20230309-0006/nvdThird Party Advisory
- www.debian.org/security/2023/dsa-5365nvdThird Party Advisory
News mentions
0No linked articles in our index yet.