Apple macOS WebKit memory corruption

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability has been found in Apple macOS and classified as critical. Impacted is an unknown function of the component WebKit. The manipulation leads to memory corruption. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2023-23517. The attack is possible to be carried out remotely. No exploit exists. The affected component should be upgraded.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Apple macOS (Operating System) (the affected version unknown). It has been rated as critical. This issue affects an unknown part of the component WebKit. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a memory corruption vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-119. The product performs operations on a memory buffer, but it can read from or write to a memory location that is outside of the intended boundary of the buffer. Impacted is confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

The issue was addressed with improved memory handling. This issue is fixed in macOS Monterey 12.6.3, macOS Ventura 13.2, watchOS 9.3, macOS Big Sur 11.7.3, Safari 16.3, tvOS 16.3, iOS 16.3 and iPadOS 16.3. Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution.

The weakness was disclosed 01/23/2023 by YeongHyeon Choi as HT213605 as confirmed advisory (Website). The advisory is shared at support.apple.com. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2023-23517. It demands that the victim is doing some kind of user interaction. Neither technical details nor an exploit are publicly available. The price for an exploit might be around USD $0-$5k at the moment (estimation calculated on 11/30/2025). It is expected to see the exploit prices for this product increasing in the near future. The advisory points out:

Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 212174 (Apple Safari 16.3 Multiple Vulnerabilities (120946)), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading eliminates this vulnerability. A possible mitigation has been published immediately after the disclosure of the vulnerability. The advisory contains the following remark:

The issue was addressed with improved memory handling.

The vulnerability is also documented in the databases at Tenable (212174), EUVD (EUVD-2023-27617) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2023-1185). Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

Affected

• Debian Linux
• Amazon Linux 2
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Fedora Linux
• Ubuntu Linux
• SUSE Linux
• Oracle Linux
• Gentoo Linux
• SUSE openSUSE
• Red Hat OpenShift
• RESF Rocky Linux

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Apple

Name

• macOS

License

• commercial

Website

• Vendor: https://www.apple.com/

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Entryinfo

Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

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