CVE-2023-33975
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 version 2023.01 and prior, an attacker can send a crafted frame to the device resulting in an out of bounds write in the packet buffer. The overflow can be used to corrupt other packets and the allocator metadata. Corrupting a pointer will easily lead to denial of service. While carefully manipulating the allocator metadata gives an attacker the possibility to write data to arbitrary locations and thus execute arbitrary code. This issue is fixed in pull request 19680. As a workaround, disable support for fragmented IP datagrams.
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 program reads or writes outside the bounds of an allocated buffer, corrupting adjacent memory. With crafted input an attacker can overwrite control data and, with effort, redirect execution to their own code. Remediation ranges from bounds checking and safe library functions to compiler mitigations, usually alongside a careful audit of the surrounding code.
General guidance for the memory buffer bounds error 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
- 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 · scopedAny RIOT-OS release version newer than 2023.01 that includes the merged PR #19680 fix
- 1. Identify the current RIOT-OS version in use by checking the version.h file or git describe output in the project
- 2. Check if PR #19680 has been merged into your current version by reviewing the git log for commit 1aeb90ee5555ae78b567a6365ae4ab71bfd1404b
- 3. If the vulnerable version is still in use, plan an upgrade to a release version newer than 2023.01 that incorporates the fix from PR #19680
- 4. After upgrading, verify the fix is present by confirming the 6LoWPAN packet processing code no longer contains the out-of-bounds write vulnerability
- 5. Test the updated firmware thoroughly, especially IPv6/6LoWPAN network functionality
- 6. As an alternative mitigation (if upgrade is not immediately feasible), disable support for fragmented IP datagrams in the network stack configuration
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-2023-33975 — 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-2023-33975 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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