VulnerabilityPublished 24 Aug 2024Updated 3 Nov 2025

CVE-2024-45235: Fort · NULL Pointer Dereference

Source CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 7.5 High · fixed in 1.6.3 : patch Fort soon.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 17:16 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

7.5High

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

EPSS: 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 23% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Affects: Fort before 1.6.3
Patch: Available – fixed in 1.6.3

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 24 Aug 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 26 Oct 2026.

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 or the CVSS exploit maturity 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

Upgrade Fort to version 1.6.3 or later as soon as the patch is released to ensure proper sanitization of the Authority Key Identifier extension and prevent crashes.
Implement monitoring and alerting on Fort instances to detect crashes or abnormal behavior related to RPKI validation processes.
Validate and audit RPKI repositories and Trust Anchors to detect and block repositories serving malformed or suspicious resource certificates.
Employ redundancy in RPKI validation infrastructure to maintain Route Origin Validation availability even if one validator crashes.
Coordinate with upstream providers and RPKI repository maintainers to ensure repository integrity and timely updates.
Consider deploying additional RPKI validators from different vendors as a fallback to reduce single points of failure.
Stay informed through security advisories from Fort developers and RPKI community to apply updates promptly.

Description

An issue was discovered in Fort before 1.6.3. A malicious RPKI repository that descends from a (trusted) Trust Anchor can serve (via rsync or RRDP) a resource certificate containing an Authority Key Identifier extension that lacks the keyIdentifier field. Fort references this pointer without sanitizing it first. Because Fort is an RPKI Relying Party, a crash can lead to Route Origin Validation unavailability, which can lead to compromised routing.

Impact

For European organizations, the impact of CVE-2024-45235 can be substantial, particularly for ISPs, network operators, and critical infrastructure providers that depend on Fort for RPKI-based Route Origin Validation. The crash caused by processing malformed certificates leads to unavailability of route validation, increasing the risk of accepting invalid BGP route announcements. This can result in traffic interception, route hijacking, or denial of service attacks, undermining network reliability and security. Given Europe's dense and interconnected internet infrastructure, disruptions in routing validation can cascade, affecting multiple downstream networks and services. Critical sectors such as finance, government, telecommunications, and energy that rely on stable and secure routing may experience service degradation or outages. Furthermore, the vulnerability could be exploited by threat actors aiming to disrupt European internet traffic or conduct espionage by manipulating routing paths. Although no known exploits exist yet, the ease of exploitation (no authentication or user interaction required) and the high availability impact make this a pressing concern for European network operators.

CWE-476NULL Pointer Dereference (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessLikelihood of exploit: MediumCWE Top 25 (2025): #13OWASP Top 10 A10:2025: Mishandling of Exceptional Conditions (opens in a new tab)
The product dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid but is NULL.
Implementation
For any pointers that could have been modified or provided from a function that can return NULL, check the pointer for NULL before use. When working with a multithreaded or otherwise asynchronous environment, ensure that proper locking APIs are used to lock before the check, and unlock when it has finished.
Requirements
Select a programming language that is not susceptible to these issues.
Implementation
Check the results of all functions that return a value and verify that the value is non-null before acting upon it.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Logging (opens in a new tab)
Error Handling (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V11.1.7 (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 3 Nov 2025, 21:47 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-476

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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