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MongooseApplication · Cesanta

CVE-2023-2905

HIGH · 8.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2023-08-09
Patch available
A vendor patch is available. No clean upgrade release — apply the published patch.
See remediation →
93/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Public exploit 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
Due to a failure in validating the length of a provided MQTT_CMD_PUBLISH parsed message with a variable length header, Cesanta Mongoose, an embeddable web server, version 7.10 is susceptible to a heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability in the default configuration. Version 7.9 and prior does not appear to be vulnerable. This issue is resolved in version 7.11.

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-122

Data overflows a buffer allocated on the heap, corrupting neighbouring heap structures and allocator metadata that a patient attacker can groom into control of execution. It is subtler than a stack overflow but just as dangerous. The fix is validating lengths before every write and using safe allocators and bounded operations.

General guidance for the heap-based buffer 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
MongooseApplication
Affected:= 7.10

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
Adjacent
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:A/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
Patch available Apply the vendor patch
Vendor patch github.com →
Recommended fix High confidence

Cesanta Mongoose version 7.11

  1. Locate the Mongoose library dependency in your project (check package.json, go.mod, package manager files, or direct source inclusion)
  2. Update the version reference from 7.10 to 7.11 in your dependency management system or source code
  3. Run your package manager update/install command to fetch version 7.11 (e.g., npm update, pip install --upgrade, go get)
  4. If using direct source inclusion, download the version 7.11 release from https://github.com/cesanta/mongoose/releases
  5. Rebuild and recompile your application with the updated library version
  6. Test your application to verify the MQTT functionality works correctly with the fixed version

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

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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-2023-2905 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

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