CVE-2023-42364

Publication date 27 November 2023

Last updated 26 August 2025

Ubuntu priority

Cvss 3 Severity Score

Description

A use-after-free vulnerability in BusyBox v.1.36.1 allows attackers to cause a denial of service via a crafted awk pattern in the awk.c evaluate function.

Read the notes from the security team

Status

Show unmaintained releases

Package	Ubuntu Release	Status
busybox	25.10 questing	Fixed 1:1.36.1-6ubuntu4
	25.04 plucky	Fixed 1:1.36.1-6ubuntu4
	24.10 oracular	Fixed 1:1.36.1-6ubuntu4
	24.04 LTS noble	Fixed 1:1.36.1-6ubuntu3.1
	23.10 mantic	Ignored end of life, was deferred [2024-06-17]
	23.04 lunar	Ignored end of life, was deferred [2024-06-17]
	22.04 LTS jammy	Not affected
	20.04 LTS focal	Not affected
	18.04 LTS bionic	Not affected
	16.04 LTS xenial	Not affected
	14.04 LTS trusty	Not affected

Notes

eslerm

CVE-2023-42364 and CVE-2023-42365 share a patch, see both bugs upstream's patch contains a regression alpine has a patch for the regression upstream introduced

mdeslaur

looks like the third patch below fixes the regression

Patch details

For informational purposes only. We recommend not to cherry-pick updates. How can I get the fixes?

Package	Patch details
busybox	Upstream: editors Upstream: editors Upstream: editors

Severity score breakdown

Parameter	Value
Base score	5.5 · Medium
Attack vector	Local
Attack complexity	Low
Privileges required	None
User interaction	Required
Scope	Unchanged
Confidentiality	None
Integrity impact	None
Availability impact	High
Vector	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

References

Related Ubuntu Security Notices (USN)

USN-6961-1
BusyBox vulnerabilities
14 August 2024