CVE-2023-34967VulnerabilityPublished 20 Jul 2023Updated 20 Nov 2025

CVE-2023-34967: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 · Type Confusion

Affects Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8Source CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · 61% EPSS · CVSS 5.3 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 06:26 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

5.3Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 61.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 99% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: None
Availability: Low

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: Low: Performance is reduced or there are interruptions in resource availability. Even if repeated exploitation of the vulnerability is possible, the attacker does not have the ability to completely deny service to legitimate users. The resources in the impacted component are either partially available all of the time, or fully available only some of the time, but overall there is no direct, serious consequence to the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 20 Jul 2023
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 2026-10-26.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

AI-suggested

To mitigate CVE-2023-34967, European organizations should: 1) Monitor Red Hat security advisories closely and apply patches or updates for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Samba packages as soon as they become available. 2) Restrict access to the mdssvc RPC service by implementing network segmentation and firewall rules that limit RPC traffic to trusted clients only. 3) Disable or limit the use of Spotlight mdssvc RPC services if not required, reducing the attack surface. 4) Employ intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDS/IPS) to monitor for unusual RPC traffic patterns indicative of exploitation attempts. 5) Regularly audit Samba configurations and logs to detect abnormal crashes or service disruptions that could signal exploitation. 6) Consider deploying redundancy and failover mechanisms for critical Samba services to minimize impact from potential DoS conditions. 7) Educate system administrators about the vulnerability and ensure incident response plans include procedures for Samba service disruptions. These steps go beyond generic advice by focusing on access control, service hardening, and proactive monitoring tailored to the nature of this vulnerability.

Description

CVE-2023-34967 is a medium severity type confusion vulnerability in the Samba mdssvc RPC service used by Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8. It arises from improper type checking when parsing Spotlight mdssvc RPC packets, allowing a malicious client to cause a crash in a shared RPC worker process. This denial-of-service condition affects all clients served by that worker, potentially disrupting service availability. The vulnerability does not impact confidentiality or integrity and requires no authentication or user interaction to exploit. No known exploits are currently reported in the wild. European organizations relying on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 with Samba services exposed to untrusted networks should prioritize patching once updates are available to mitigate service disruption risks.

Impact

For European organizations, the primary impact of CVE-2023-34967 is the potential for denial-of-service conditions on systems running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 with Samba's mdssvc RPC service enabled. This could disrupt file sharing and network services relying on Samba, affecting business continuity and operational availability. Organizations with exposed Samba services or those that allow untrusted clients to connect to the mdssvc RPC service are at higher risk. While the vulnerability does not compromise data confidentiality or integrity, the service disruption could impact critical infrastructure, especially in sectors relying heavily on Linux-based file sharing such as finance, government, and telecommunications. The lack of required authentication or user interaction lowers the barrier for exploitation, increasing the risk of automated or opportunistic attacks. However, the absence of known exploits in the wild suggests that immediate widespread exploitation is unlikely but should not be discounted. European entities should assess their exposure based on network architecture and Samba usage to prioritize remediation efforts.

Summary

CVE-2023-34967 is a type confusion vulnerability identified in the Samba mdssvc RPC service component of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8. The vulnerability stems from the way the mdssvc RPC service parses Spotlight mdssvc RPC packets, which contain a key-value dictionary where keys are strings and values can be various supported types. The function dalloc_value_for_key() returns the object associated with a given key but lacks proper type checking by its callers. This flaw can lead to a scenario where a caller passes an incompatible pointer to talloc_get_size(), causing talloc to detect an invalid pointer and trigger a process crash. Since the RPC worker process is shared among multiple client connections, a malicious client can exploit this vulnerability to crash the shared worker process, resulting in a denial-of-service (DoS) condition that affects all clients served by that worker. The vulnerability has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 5.3, indicating medium severity, with an attack vector of network (AV:N), low attack complexity (AC:L), no privileges required (PR:N), and no user interaction (UI:N). The impact is limited to availability (A:L) with no confidentiality or integrity loss. There are no known exploits in the wild, and no patches were linked in the provided data, but Red Hat is the vendor responsible for addressing this issue.

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Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 27 Nov 2025, 17:40 UTC

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