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Fencer Vulns
critical 9.8

CVE-2023-26463 json

strongSwan 5.9.8 and 5.9.9 potentially allows remote code execution because it uses a variable named "public" for two different purposes wi…

published 2023-04-14 3 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2023-30283

cvss
9.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
2.3%
EPSS 2.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 83%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

strongSwan 5.9.8 and 5.9.9 potentially allows remote code execution because it uses a variable named "public" for two different purposes within the same function. There is initially incorrect access control, later followed by an expired pointer dereference. One attack vector is sending an untrusted client certificate during EAP-TLS. A server is affected only if it loads plugins that implement TLS-based EAP methods (EAP-TLS, EAP-TTLS, EAP-PEAP, or EAP-TNC). This is fixed in 5.9.10.

Patch / fix

  • strongswan Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 5.9.8-4

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2023-26463

  • strongswan openSUSE Tumbleweed 5.9.10-1.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:12749-1

  • strongswan Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 +5 more 5.9.10-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2023-26463

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • strongswan CBL-Mariner 2.0 5.9.10-1

azure linux advisories AZL-26300

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2023-26463 updated cvss 8.1

strongswan: Authentication bypass in certificate verification in TLS-based EAP methods

  • Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
21 mo ago

Exploit prediction

2.26% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 83% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CISA ADP 3.1 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.1 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CNA 3.1 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-476 NULL Pointer Dereference
  • CWE-295 Improper Certificate Validation

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.