Detections
Analytics
Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2023-2650
medium Nessus Plugin ID 252505
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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.- Issue summary: Processing some specially crafted ASN.1 object identifiers or data containing them may be very slow. Impact summary: Applications that use OBJ_obj2txt() directly, or use any of the OpenSSL subsystems OCSP, PKCS7/SMIME, CMS, CMP/CRMF or TS with no message size limit may experience notable to very long delays when processing those messages, which may lead to a Denial of Service. An OBJECT IDENTIFIER is composed of a series of numbers - sub-identifiers - most of which have no size limit.
OBJ_obj2txt() may be used to translate an ASN.1 OBJECT IDENTIFIER given in DER encoding form (using the OpenSSL type ASN1_OBJECT) to its canonical numeric text form, which are the sub-identifiers of the OBJECT IDENTIFIER in decimal form, separated by periods. When one of the sub-identifiers in the OBJECT IDENTIFIER is very large (these are sizes that are seen as absurdly large, taking up tens or hundreds of KiBs), the translation to a decimal number in text may take a very long time. The time complexity is O(n^2) with 'n' being the size of the sub-identifiers in bytes (*). With OpenSSL 3.0, support to fetch cryptographic algorithms using names / identifiers in string form was introduced. This includes using OBJECT IDENTIFIERs in canonical numeric text form as identifiers for fetching algorithms. Such OBJECT IDENTIFIERs may be received through the ASN.1 structure AlgorithmIdentifier, which is commonly used in multiple protocols to specify what cryptographic algorithm should be used to sign or verify, encrypt or decrypt, or digest passed data. Applications that call OBJ_obj2txt() directly with untrusted data are affected, with any version of OpenSSL. If the use is for the mere purpose of display, the severity is considered low. In OpenSSL 3.0 and newer, this affects the subsystems OCSP, PKCS7/SMIME, CMS, CMP/CRMF or TS. It also impacts anything that processes X.509 certificates, including simple things like verifying its signature. The impact on TLS is relatively low, because all versions of OpenSSL have a 100KiB limit on the peer's certificate chain. Additionally, this only impacts clients, or servers that have explicitly enabled client authentication. In OpenSSL 1.1.1 and 1.0.2, this only affects displaying diverse objects, such as X.509 certificates. This is assumed to not happen in such a way that it would cause a Denial of Service, so these versions are considered not affected by this issue in such a way that it would be cause for concern, and the severity is therefore considered low. (CVE-2023-2650)
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
Plugin Details
Severity: Medium
ID: 252505
File Name: unpatched_CVE_2023_2650.nasl
Version: 1.2
Type: local
Agent: unix
Family: Misc.
Published: 8/20/2025
Updated: 9/1/2025
Supported Sensors: Agentless Assessment, Frictionless Assessment Agent, Frictionless Assessment AWS, Frictionless Assessment Azure, Nessus Agent, Nessus
Risk Information
VPR
Risk Factor: Medium
Score: 4.4
CVSS v2
Risk Factor: Medium
Base Score: 5
Temporal Score: 3.7
Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P
CVSS Score Source: CVE-2023-2650
CVSS v3
Risk Factor: Medium
Base Score: 6.5
Temporal Score: 5.7
Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:U/RL:O/RC:C
Vulnerability Information
CPE: p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:openssl, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:openssl-devel, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:20.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:compat-openssl10, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:openssl-perl, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:openssl-libs, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:openssl-perl, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:openssl-static, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:9, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:18.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:openssl-static, cpe:/o:centos:centos:8, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:edk2, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:shim-ia32, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:edk2-ovmf, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:compat-openssl10, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:compat-openssl11, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:edk2, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:8, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:openssl-libs, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:shim-x64, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:shim-x64, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:openssl-devel, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:edk2, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:shim-ia32, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:shim-aa64, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:compat-openssl11, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:shim-aa64, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:16.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:edk2-ovmf, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:shim, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:openssl, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:22.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:edk2-aarch64, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:shim, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:edk2-aarch64
Required KB Items: Host/cpu, Host/local_checks_enabled, global_settings/vendor_unpatched, Host/OS/identifier
Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available
Vulnerability Publication Date: 3/21/2023
Reference Information
CVE: CVE-2023-2650