CVE-2023-33973
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 · uneditedRIOT-OS, an operating system for Internet of Things (IoT) devices, contains a network stack with the ability to process 6LoWPAN frames. In versions 2023.01 and prior, an attacker can send a crafted frame which is forwarded by the device. During encoding of the packet a NULL pointer dereference occurs. This crashes the device leading to denial of service. A patch is available at pull request 19678. There are no known workarounds.
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 analysisThe code follows a pointer that is null, crashing the process. An attacker who can reliably trigger it turns the crash into a denial of service. The fix is checking for null before use and handling the failure path gracefully.
General guidance for the null pointer dereference 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<= 2023.01CVSS 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
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/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 · scopedRIOT-OS master branch (commit c9d7863e5664a169035038628029bb07e090c5ff) or subsequent stable release after 2023.01
- Check current RIOT-OS version using `riot-version` or examining the firmware/build configuration
- If running version 2023.01 or earlier, obtain a build from the master branch after commit c9d7863e5664a169035038628029bb07e090c5ff, or wait for the next stable release
- Rebuild the application firmware with the updated RIOT-OS codebase
- Flash the updated firmware to the affected IoT devices
- Verify the device remains operational after receiving crafted 6LoWPAN frames (or test in a controlled environment)
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2023-33973 — 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-2023-33973 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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