CVE-2023-31284
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 · uneditedillumos illumos-gate before 676abcb has a stack buffer overflow in /dev/net, leading to privilege escalation via a stat on a long file name in /dev/net.
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 stack buffer overflow vulnerability exists in the illumos kernel's /dev/net device driver. The flaw is triggered when performing a stat() system call on a file with an excessively long name within the /dev/net directory. This buffer overflow allows a local attacker to overwrite stack memory and achieve privilege escalation to root privileges.
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< 2023-04-29CVSS 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
- Local
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
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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Confirm illumos operating systemRun 'uname -a' or 'cat /etc/release' to identify the operating systemAffected if The system is not running illumos (the vulnerability only affects illumos)
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Check illumos gate versionRun 'uname -v' to get the build date/version string. Compare this to the 2023-04-29 cutoff dateAffected if The illumos gate version is from before 2023-04-29
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Verify /dev/net existsRun 'ls -la /dev/net' to confirm the device driver directory existsAffected if /dev/net does not exist (the vulnerable driver is not present)
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Check access to /dev/netRun 'ls /dev/net' with appropriate permissions to see if the directory is readableAffected if You can list files in /dev/net, meaning the vulnerable code path could be triggered
A system is affected if it runs illumos with a gate version older than 2023-04-29 and has the /dev/net device driver accessible for stat() operations on files within that directory.
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.
dbcve · scoped2023-04-29
Apply the illumos-gate fix from commit 676abcb or later, which patches the vulnerable code in the /dev/net device driver to properly bounds-check file name lengths before copying them into the fixed-size stack buffer.
illumos-gate version dated 2023-04-29 or later
- Obtain the latest illumos-gate source code from the official illumos GitHub repository (https://github.com/illumos/illumos-gate)
- Ensure the checkout date is after 2023-04-29 to include the fix for CVE-2023-31284
- Review the commit history around the fix date to confirm the specific changes addressing the stack buffer overflow in /dev/net
- Rebuild the illumos-gate kernel and associated modules with the updated source code
- Deploy the newly built illumos kernel and reboot the system
- Verify the fix by testing /dev/net functionality with long file name stats to confirm the overflow is resolved
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
- Consultation4.0 h
- Implementation8.0 h
- Testing6.0 h
- Review / QA4.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2023-31284 — 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-2023-31284 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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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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