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Visual Studio 2019Application · Microsoft

CVE-2023-36042

MEDIUM · 5.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2023-11-14
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 16.11.32 / 17.2.22 or later.
See remediation →
57/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
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
Visual Studio Denial of Service Vulnerability

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
Visual Studio 2019Application
Affected:>= 16.0, < 16.11.32
Visual Studio 2022Application
Affected:>= 17.2, < 17.2.22>= 17.4, < 17.4.14>= 17.6, < 17.6.10>= 17.7, < 17.7.7

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

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/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 · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 16.11.32 / 17.2.22 / 17.4.14 or later
Fixed in 16.11.3217.2.2217.4.14
Vendor patch msrc.microsoft.com →
Recommended fix High confidence

Visual Studio 2019: 16.11.32+ | Visual Studio 2022: 17.2.22+, 17.4.14+, 17.6.10+, or 17.7.7+

  1. Identify the currently installed Visual Studio version (Help > About Microsoft Visual Studio)
  2. For Visual Studio 2019 users: Upgrade to version 16.11.32 or later
  3. For Visual Studio 2022 users on 17.2.x branch: Upgrade to version 17.2.22 or later
  4. For Visual Studio 2022 users on 17.4.x branch: Upgrade to version 17.4.14 or later
  5. For Visual Studio 2022 users on 17.6.x branch: Upgrade to version 17.6.10 or later
  6. For Visual Studio 2022 users on 17.7.x branch: Upgrade to version 17.7.7 or later
  7. Download the appropriate update from the official Visual Studio downloads page or use Visual Studio Installer to apply the update
  8. Restart Visual Studio after the update is applied
Caveat Minor Visual Studio updates typically have minimal breaking changes; verify any critical extensions are compatible with the target version

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

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $1,600. Get the upgrade done

Scan for this in your stack

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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-2023-36042 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • 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
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data