CVE-2023-28113 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.9) Improper Input Validation vulnerability in russh. 1 public exploit reference exists, so weaponization risk is real. O3 Security confirms whether CVE-2023-28113 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
russh may use insecure Diffie-Hellman keys
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- 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-2023-28113.
Real-World Exposure
russh🦀russhReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects crates.io packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
russh is a Rust SSH client and server library. Starting in version 0.34.0 and prior to versions 0.36.2 and 0.37.1, Diffie-Hellman key validation is insufficient, which can lead to insecure shared secrets and therefore breaks confidentiality. Connections between a russh client and server or those of a russh peer with some other misbehaving peer are most likely to be problematic. These may vulnerable to eavesdropping. Most other implementations reject such keys, so this is mainly an interoperability issue in such a case. This issue is fixed in versions 0.36.2 and 0.37.1
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | russh | all versions | 0.36.2 |
| 🦀crates.io | russh | ≥ 0.37.0&&< 0.37.1 | 0.37.1 |
Research use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for russh. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update russh to 0.36.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-28113 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 pinpoints whether CVE-2023-28113 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to CVE-2023-28113. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-28113 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2023-28113 across crates.io dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.