CVE-2023-1894
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 · uneditedA Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) issue was discovered in Puppet Server 7.9.2 certificate validation. An issue related to specifically crafted certificate names significantly slowed down server operations.
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 · moderate confidenceA Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) vulnerability exists in Puppet Server 7.9.2's certificate validation logic. Specifically crafted certificate names cause the regex processing to exhibit catastrophic backtracking, significantly slowing or hanging server operations.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
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= 2021.7.1= 2023.0= 7.9.2CVSS 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
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- Low
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify Puppet Server versionRun 'puppetserver --version' or check the installed package version via your package manager (e.g., 'rpm -q puppetserver' or 'dpkg -l puppetserver')Affected if Version is 7.9.2 exactly
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Identify Puppet Enterprise versionRun 'puppet --version' with Enterprise flags or check via the PE console under Node Management > Master node detailsAffected if Version is 2021.7.1 or 2023.0 exactly (these are the only affected PE versions listed)
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Confirm certificate services are activeVerify Puppet Server is running and serving certificate endpoints. Check via 'systemctl status puppetserver' or by querying the CA API endpoint (e.g., 'curl -k https://localhost:8140/puppet-ca/v1/certificate_statuses/_local')Affected if Puppet Server is running with CA services enabled (this is the default configuration)
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Inspect certificate name validation configurationCheck the 'certificate-allowlist' and 'authorization' configurations in /etc/puppetlabs/puppetserver/conf.d or the PE console under Infrastructure > Certificates > Certificate Authority settingsAffected if Certificate validation is enabled and processing incoming certificate requests (default state)
You are affected if Puppet Server is version 7.9.2 or Puppet Enterprise is version 2021.7.1 or 2023.0, and certificate authority services are running (the default configuration).
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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.
From vendor dataUpdate Puppet Server to a patched version that addresses the ReDoS vulnerability in certificate name validation, or implement input length/character restrictions on certificate names as a compensating control.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation4.0 h
- Testing3.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $3,088.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2023-1894 — 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 sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2023-1894 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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