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Fencer Vulns
medium 6.5

CVE-2023-33460 json

There's a memory leak in yajl 2.1.0 with use of `yajl_tree_parse` function

published 2023-06-06 3 y ago modified 2026-07-25 3 mo ago also EUVD-2023-37623 , JLSEC-2026-19 , RSEC-2023-3

cvss
6.5
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
1.1%
EPSS 1.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 66%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

There's a memory leak in yajl 2.1.0 with use of yajl_tree_parse function. which will cause out-of-memory in server and cause crash.

Patch / fix

  • julia YAJL_jll 2.1.2+0
  • cran jsonlite 1.8.8
  • yajl Debian 12 2.1.0-3+deb12u2
  • yajl Debian 14, Debian 13 2.1.0-5
  • r-cran-jsonlite Debian 14, Debian 13 1.8.8+dfsg-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2023-33460

  • yajl Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 2.1.0-3ubuntu0.20.04.1
  • yajl Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 2.1.0-3ubuntu0.22.04.1
  • yajl Ubuntu Pro 14.04 LTS 2.0.4-4ubuntu0.1~esm1
  • yajl Ubuntu Pro 16.04 LTS 2.1.0-2ubuntu0.16.04.1~esm1
  • yajl Ubuntu Pro 18.04 LTS 2.1.0-2ubuntu0.18.04.1~esm1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2023-33460

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

  • yajl RHEL 8 2.1.0-12.el8
  • yajl RHEL 9 2.1.0-22.el9
  • yajl RHEL 8.8 EUS 2.1.0-12.el8_8
  • yajl RHEL 8.6 EUS 2.1.0-13.el8_6

red hat advisories RHSA-2024:2580RHSA-2024:2063RHSA-2023:7057RHSA-2023:6551

  • libyajl SLE Real Time 15 SP3, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP5, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP4 +10 more 2.1.0-150000.4.6.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2023:3301-1

  • yajl AlmaLinux 8 2.1.0-12.el8
  • yajl AlmaLinux 9 2.1.0-22.el9

almalinux advisories ALSA-2023:7057ALSA-2023:6551

  • yajl Rocky Linux 9 2.1.0-22.el9
  • yajl Rocky Linux 8 2.1.0-12.el8

rocky linux advisories RLSA-2023:6551RLSA-2023:7057

  • yajl Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 +3 more 2.1.0-r9

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2023-33460

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

  • yajl CBL-Mariner 2.0, Azure Linux 3.0 2.1.0-19

azure linux advisories AZL-27143AZL-35363

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-2023-33460 updated cvss 6.5

yajl: Memory leak in yajl_tree_parse function

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 yajl
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 yajl
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat CodeReady Linux Builder (v. 8) yajl-devel 2.1.0-12.el8, yajl-debuginfo 2.1.0-12.el8, yajl-debugsource 2.1.0-12.el8
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2023:7057
  • Red Hat CodeReady Linux Builder (v. 9) yajl-devel 2.1.0-22.el9, yajl-debuginfo 2.1.0-22.el9, yajl-debugsource 2.1.0-22.el9
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2023:6551
  • Red Hat CodeReady Linux Builder EUS (v.8.6) yajl-devel 2.1.0-13.el8_6, yajl-debuginfo 2.1.0-13.el8_6, yajl-debugsource 2.1.0-13.el8_6
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2024:2063
  • Red Hat CodeReady Linux Builder EUS (v.8.8) yajl-devel 2.1.0-12.el8_8, yajl-debuginfo 2.1.0-12.el8_8, yajl-debugsource 2.1.0-12.el8_8
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2024:2580
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 8) yajl 2.1.0-12.el8
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2023:7057
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 9) yajl 2.1.0-22.el9
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2023:6551
show 3 more
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream EUS (v.8.6) yajl 2.1.0-13.el8_6
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2024:2063
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream EUS (v.8.8) yajl 2.1.0-12.el8_8
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2024:2580
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 yajl
    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
22 mo ago

Exploit prediction

1.13% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 66% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • github.com https://github.com/lloyd/yajl/issues/250 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CISA ADP 3.1 6.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 3.1 6.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CNA 3.1 6.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
OSV 3.1 6.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
julia YAJL_jll
<2.1.2+0
2.1.2+0
cran jsonlite
>=0.9.12, <1.8.8
1.8.8

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-401 Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime

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.