Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2023-31147

medium Nessus Plugin ID 227147

Synopsis

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed with a vulnerability that the vendor indicates will not be patched.

Description

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed that are impacted by a vulnerability without a vendor supplied patch available.

- c-ares is an asynchronous resolver library. When /dev/urandom or RtlGenRandom() are unavailable, c-ares uses rand() to generate random numbers used for DNS query ids. This is not a CSPRNG, and it is also not seeded by srand() so will generate predictable output. Input from the random number generator is fed into a non-compilant RC4 implementation and may not be as strong as the original RC4 implementation. No attempt is made to look for modern OS-provided CSPRNGs like arc4random() that is widely available. This issue has been fixed in version 1.19.1. (CVE-2023-31147)

Note that Nessus relies on the presence of the package as reported by the vendor.

Solution

There is no known solution at this time.

See Also

https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2023-31147

https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2023-31147

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 227147

File Name: unpatched_CVE_2023_31147.nasl

Version: 1.2

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: Misc.

Published: 3/5/2025

Updated: 8/20/2025

Supported Sensors: Frictionless Assessment AWS, Frictionless Assessment Azure, Frictionless Assessment Agent, Nessus Agent, Agentless Assessment, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Low

Score: 2.5

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 5

Temporal Score: 3.7

Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2023-31147

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 6.5

Temporal Score: 5.7

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:U/RL:O/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:c-ares-devel, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:c-ares, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:c-ares, cpe:/o:debian:debian_linux:11.0, cpe:/o:centos:centos:8, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:c-ares, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:c-ares-devel, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:8, cpe:/o:debian:debian_linux:12.0

Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/cpu, global_settings/vendor_unpatched, Host/OS/identifier

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Vulnerability Publication Date: 5/24/2023

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2023-31147