CVE-2024-22563VulnerabilityPublished 19 Jan 2024Updated 2 Jun 2025

CVE-2024-22563: n/a

Source CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 7.5 High.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 07:57 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

7.5High

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

EPSS: 0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 46% 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:H

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

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: High: There is total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 19 Jan 2024
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

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
GitHubopenvswitch/ovs`pkg:github/openvswitch/ovs`Other threats	Affected =2.17.8	Fixed in–

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AI-suggested

To mitigate CVE-2024-22563 effectively, European organizations should: 1) Immediately inventory and identify all instances of Open vSwitch 2.17.8 in their environments, including virtualized infrastructure, cloud platforms, and network appliances. 2) Monitor vendor communications and security advisories for official patches or updates addressing this memory leak and apply them promptly once available. 3) In the absence of patches, consider deploying temporary workarounds such as restarting Open vSwitch services periodically to clear leaked memory and prevent resource exhaustion. 4) Implement network-level protections like rate limiting and traffic filtering to reduce exposure to potential remote exploitation attempts. 5) Enhance monitoring and alerting on memory usage and performance metrics of Open vSwitch instances to detect abnormal resource consumption early. 6) Conduct penetration testing and vulnerability assessments focusing on network virtualization components to identify exploitation attempts. 7) Engage with cloud and infrastructure providers to confirm their mitigation status if using managed services that incorporate Open vSwitch. 8) Review and harden network segmentation to limit the attack surface and isolate critical network functions. These measures, combined with timely patching, will reduce the risk of denial of service conditions caused by this vulnerability.

Description

openvswitch 2.17.8 was discovered to contain a memory leak via the function xmalloc__ in openvswitch-2.17.8/lib/util.c.

Impact

For European organizations, the impact of CVE-2024-22563 can be substantial, especially for those operating large-scale virtualized data centers, cloud service providers, telecommunications companies, and enterprises leveraging software-defined networking (SDN) solutions. A memory leak in Open vSwitch can lead to gradual resource depletion on critical network infrastructure components, resulting in degraded network performance, instability, or complete service outages. This can disrupt business operations, impact service-level agreements (SLAs), and cause financial losses. Additionally, availability issues in network virtualization layers can cascade, affecting multiple tenants in multi-tenant environments, which is common in European cloud markets. Given the remote exploitability without authentication or user interaction, attackers could launch denial of service attacks from external networks, increasing the risk profile. The lack of confidentiality or integrity impact reduces the risk of data breaches but does not diminish the operational risks associated with network downtime. Organizations in sectors with stringent uptime requirements, such as finance, healthcare, and critical infrastructure, are particularly vulnerable to the operational disruptions caused by this vulnerability.

Summary

CVE-2024-22563 is a high-severity vulnerability identified in Open vSwitch version 2.17.8, specifically involving a memory leak in the function xmalloc__ located in the file lib/util.c. Open vSwitch is a widely used multilayer virtual switch primarily deployed in virtualized environments and cloud infrastructures to facilitate network automation and management. The vulnerability arises from improper memory management where allocated memory is not correctly freed, leading to a memory leak. This flaw is classified under CWE-401 (Improper Release of Memory Before Removing Last Reference or Pointer), which can degrade system performance or cause denial of service (DoS) conditions due to resource exhaustion. The CVSS 3.1 base score is 7.5, indicating a high severity level. The vector string CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H shows that the vulnerability is remotely exploitable over the network without requiring privileges or user interaction, and it impacts availability but not confidentiality or integrity. Although no known exploits are currently reported in the wild, the ease of exploitation and potential impact on availability make this a significant concern for organizations relying on Open vSwitch for network virtualization and traffic management. The absence of vendor or product details and patch links suggests that this vulnerability may be newly disclosed and that mitigations or patches might still be pending or not widely disseminated. Organizations using Open vSwitch 2.17.8 should prioritize assessing their exposure and applying any forthcoming patches or workarounds to mitigate potential denial of service attacks stemming from this memory leak.

CWE-401Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime (opens in a new tab)
Variant weaknessLikelihood of exploit: Medium
The product does not sufficiently track and release allocated memory after it has been used, making the memory unavailable for reallocation and reuse.
Implementation · Libraries or Frameworks
Choose a language or tool that provides automatic memory management, or makes manual memory management less error-prone.
Architecture and Design
Use an abstraction library to abstract away risky APIs. Not a complete solution.
Architecture and Design · Build and Compilation
Consider using the Boehm-Demers-Weiser garbage collector (bdwgc), which can help avoid leaks.
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

github.com/openvswitch/ovs-issues/issues/315 (opens in a new tab)

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 3 Jul 2025, 15:57 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-401

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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