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Fencer Vulns
medium 4.3

CVE-2023-40589 json

FreeRDP Global-Buffer-Overflow in ncrush_decompress

published 2023-08-31 3 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2023-45149

cvss
4.3
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
1.3%
EPSS 1.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 70%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

FreeRDP is a free implementation of the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), released under the Apache license. In affected versions there is a Global-Buffer-Overflow in the ncrush_decompress function. Feeding crafted input into this function can trigger the overflow which has only been shown to cause a crash. This issue has been addressed in versions 2.11.0 and 3.0.0-beta3. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this issue.

Patch / fix

  • freerdp freerdp 2.11.0
  • freerdp2 Debian 12 2.11.7+dfsg1-6~deb12u1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2023-40589

  • freerdp2 Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 2.2.0+dfsg1-0ubuntu0.20.04.5
  • freerdp2 Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 2.6.1+dfsg1-3ubuntu2.4
  • freerdp2 Ubuntu Pro 18.04 LTS 2.2.0+dfsg1-0ubuntu0.18.04.4+esm1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2023-40589

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • freerdp RHEL 9 2:2.11.2-1.el9
  • libwinpr RHEL 9 2:2.11.2-1.el9
  • freerdp-libs RHEL 9 2:2.11.2-1.el9

red hat advisories RHSA-2024:2208

  • freerdp SLE Workstation Extension 15 SP5, SLE Workstation Extension 15 SP4, SLE Module for Package Hub 15 SP5 +3 more 2.4.0-150400.3.23.1
  • freerdp SLE Workstation Extension 12 SP5, SLE Software Development Kit 12 SP5 2.1.2-12.38.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2023:4893-1SUSE-SU-2023:4611-1

  • freerdp2 openSUSE Tumbleweed 2.11.2-3.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:13504-1

  • freerdp AlmaLinux 9 2:2.11.2-1.el9
  • libwinpr AlmaLinux 9 2:2.11.2-1.el9
  • freerdp-libs AlmaLinux 9 2:2.11.2-1.el9

almalinux advisories ALSA-2024:2208

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-2023-40589 updated cvss 7.5

freerdp: buffer overflow in ncrush_decompress causes crash with crafted input

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 freerdp, freerdp-libs, freerdp-plugins Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 freerdp, libwinpr, freerdp-libs, freerdp-plugins
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 freerdp, libwinpr, freerdp-libs
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 9) freerdp 2.11.2-1.el9, libwinpr 2.11.2-1.el9, freerdp-libs 2.11.2-1.el9 Red Hat Enterprise Linux CRB (v. 9) freerdp-devel 2.11.2-1.el9, libwinpr-devel 2.11.2-1.el9, freerdp-debuginfo 2.11.2-1.el9, libwinpr-debuginfo 2.11.2-1.el9, freerdp-debugsource 2.11.2-1.el9, freerdp-libs-debuginfo 2.11.2-1.el9
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2024:2208

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

Exploit prediction

1.30% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 70% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • github.com https://github.com/FreeRDP/FreeRDP/security/advisories/GHSA-gc34-mw6m-g42x referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 4.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
NVD 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • FreeRDP FreeRDP

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-120 Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input

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.