Debian LinuxOperating system · Debian

CVE-2022-23852

CRITICAL · 9.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2022-01-24
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 2.4.4 / 3.1 or later.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click Patch available

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
Expat (aka libexpat) before 2.4.4 has a signed integer overflow in XML_GetBuffer, for configurations with a nonzero XML_CONTEXT_BYTES.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis
How this class of weakness works · CWE-190

An arithmetic operation produces a value too large for its type and wraps around to an unexpected — often tiny or negative — number. That miscalculated value then drives a memory allocation or a bounds check, opening the door to corruption. The fix is checked arithmetic and validating sizes before they're used.

General guidance for the integer overflow class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Debian LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 9.0
LibexpatApplication
Affected:< 2.4.4
Clustered Data OntapApplication
Affected:all versions
Oncommand Workflow AutomationApplication
Affected:all versions
NessusApplication
Affected:< 8.15.3>= 10.0.0, < 10.1.1
Communications Metasolv SolutionApplication
Affected:= 6.3.1
Sinema Remote Connect ServerApplication
Affected:< 3.1

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 2.4.4 / 3.1 / 8.15.3 or later
Fixed in 2.4.43.18.15.3
Vendor patch github.com →
Recommended fix High confidence

libexpat >= 2.4.4

  1. 1. Identify the libexpat version currently installed by running: dpkg -l | grep libexpat or rpm -qa | grep expat
  2. 2. For Debian-based systems, update package lists: sudo apt-get update
  3. 3. Upgrade libexpat to version 2.4.4 or later: sudo apt-get install libexpat1 (or libexpat1-dev for development)
  4. 4. Verify the installed version matches the fix: dpkg -l | grep libexpat
  5. 5. For source-based installations, download libexpat 2.4.4 or later from https://github.com/libexpat/libexpat/releases
  6. 6. Extract the source and rebuild: ./configure && make && make install
  7. 7. Restart any services that depend on libexpat to load the fixed version
Caveat Minor library upgrade; unlikely to break existing functionality but test in staging first

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $3,550. Get the upgrade done

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2022-23852 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.

References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2022-23852 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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