CVE-2023-21758 — Windows 10
HIGHCVE-2023-21758 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) NULL Pointer Dereference vulnerability in microsoft windows 10. EPSS puts its 30-day exploitation probability at 92.5% (100th percentile). No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
Windows Internet Key Exchange (IKE) Extension Denial of Service Vulnerability
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2023-21758.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2023-21758 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). In the shaded patch-first corner (EPSS 50%+, CVSS 7.0+).
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 396,966 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the ≥ 90% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
Windows Internet Key Exchange (IKE) Extension Denial of Service Vulnerability
Affected Products
windows 10microsoftwindows 11microsoftwindows server 2016microsoftwindows server 2019microsoftwindows server 2022microsoftDetection & mitigation playbook
Vendor / applianceDetect
Inventory every microsoft windows 10 deployment and check each version against the affected-products list above.
Remediation status
No patch has shipped for CVE-2023-21758 yet — track the microsoft windows 10 advisory for a fixed release and apply the workarounds below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
Cap what an attacker can consume: apply request size, rate and timeout limits in front of the affected component, and run it with memory and CPU limits so exhaustion degrades one worker rather than the whole service. Alongside that, restrict the management interface to trusted networks and apply the vendor's recommended configuration mitigations.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-21758 being exploited in your environment?
Detect and block the exploit chain at execution, on systems you cannot patch yet.