Skip to content
Heist/ feed
Back to feed
Medium

Out-of-bounds read when processing a received IPv6 packet

Type: advisorySources: OSV

Contiki-NG is an operating system for internet-of-things devices. In versions 4.9 and prior, when a packet is received, the Contiki-NG network stack attempts to start the periodic TCP timer if it is a TCP packet with the SYN flag set. But the implementation does not first verify that a full TCP header has been received. Specifically, the implementation attempts to access the flags field from the TCP buffer in the following conditional expression in the `check_for_tcp_syn` function. For this reason, an attacker can inject a truncated TCP packet, which will lead to an out-of-bound read from the packet buffer. As of time of publication, a patched version is not available. As a workaround, one can apply the changes in Contiki-NG pull request #2510 to patch the system.

Products
Not specified
Affected versions
Not specified
Fixed versions
Not specified
CVEs
CVE-2023-37459
Confirmed fixed CVEs
Not specified
Updated in this feed
4 Nov 2026, 17:06 UTC · Revision 1

Source evidence

Out-of-bounds read when processing a received IPv6 packet

core-osv · Original source

Published 15 Sept 2023, 19:19 UTC

Contiki-NG is an operating system for internet-of-things devices. In versions 4.9 and prior, when a packet is received, the Contiki-NG network stack attempts to start the periodic TCP timer if it is a TCP packet with the SYN flag set. But the implementation does not first verify that a full TCP header has been received. Specifically, the implementation attempts to access the flags field from the TCP buffer in the following conditional expression in the `check_for_tcp_syn` function. For this reason, an attacker can inject a truncated TCP packet, which will lead to an out-of-bound read from the packet buffer. As of time of publication, a patched version is not available. As a workaround, one can apply the changes in Contiki-NG pull request #2510 to patch the system.

osv:CVE-2023-37459
Complete source record
{
  "id": "1aab03d3555ab0363901b71691b3a222d8ac5154d33950f2f1653fe6b0f5256f",
  "url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-37459",
  "method": "structured",
  "payload": {
    "kind": "advisory",
    "title": "Out-of-bounds read when processing a received IPv6 packet",
    "summary": "Contiki-NG is an operating system for internet-of-things devices. In versions 4.9 and prior, when a packet is received, the Contiki-NG network stack attempts to start the periodic TCP timer if it is a TCP packet with the SYN flag set. But the implementation does not first verify that a full TCP header has been received. Specifically, the implementation attempts to access the flags field from the TCP buffer in the following conditional expression in the `check_for_tcp_syn` function. For this reason, an attacker can inject a truncated TCP packet, which will lead to an out-of-bound read from the packet buffer. As of time of publication, a patched version is not available. As a workaround, one can apply the changes in Contiki-NG pull request #2510 to patch the system.",
    "evidence": "osv:CVE-2023-37459",
    "products": [],
    "severity": "medium",
    "structured": {
      "id": "CVE-2023-37459",
      "aliases": [
        "CVE-2023-37459",
        "GHSA-6648-m23r-hq8c"
      ],
      "metrics": [
        {
          "type": "CVSS_V3",
          "score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N"
        }
      ],
      "affected": [
        {
          "ranges": [
            {
              "repo": "https://github.com/contiki-ng/contiki-ng",
              "type": "GIT",
              "events": [
                {
                  "introduced": "0"
                },
                {
                  "last_affected": "c20b12cd2db707d6c07918f8b26cfeb52cf298ca"
                }
              ],
              "database_specific": {
                "extracted_events": [
                  {
                    "range": [
                      {
                        "introduced": "0"
                      },
                      {
                        "last_affected": "4.9"
                      }
                    ],
                    "source": "AFFECTED_FIELD",
                    "strategy": "StringRangeExpression"
                  }
                ]
              }
            }
          ],
          "versions": [
            "release/v4.9",
            "release/v4.8",
            "release/v4.7",
            "release/v4.6",
            "release/v4.5",
            "release/v4.4",
            "release/v4.3",
            "release/v4.2",
            "release/v4.1",
            "release/v4.0",
            "develop/v4.0",
            "fork",
            "develop/v3.x-fork",
            "old/v2.6",
            "2.6-rc0",
            "2.6",
            "2.5-release",
            "old/v2.4",
            "2.4",
            "old/v2.3",
            "2.3",
            "old/v2.2.3",
            "2.2.3",
            "old/v2.2.2",
            "2.2.2",
            "old/v2.2.1",
            "2.2.1",
            "old/v2.2",
            "2.2",
            "old/v2.1",
            "2.1",
            "old/v2.0",
            "2.0"
          ],
          "database_specific": {
            "source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2023-37459.json"
          }
        }
      ],
      "modified": "2026-10-28T02:30:37.774828189Z",
      "provider": "osv",
      "references": [
        "https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2023/37xxx/CVE-2023-37459.json",
        "https://github.com/contiki-ng/contiki-ng/security/advisories/GHSA-6648-m23r-hq8c",
        "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-37459",
        "https://github.com/contiki-ng/contiki-ng/pull/2510"
      ],
      "provider_metadata": {
        "cwe_ids": [
          "CWE-125"
        ],
        "cna_assigner": "GitHub_M",
        "osv_generated_from": "https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2023/37xxx/CVE-2023-37459.json"
      }
    },
    "related_cves": [
      {
        "value": "CVE-2023-37459",
        "evidence": "/id"
      }
    ],
    "security_relevant": true,
    "severity_evidence": "/severity/0/score"
  },
  "source_id": "core-osv",
  "document_id": 505153,
  "published_at": "2023-09-15T19:19:30.232+00:00"
}