CVE-2023-33957 is a low-severity (CVSS 2.6) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in github.com/notaryproject/notation. A fix is available for github.com/notaryproject/notation — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Denial of service from high number of artifact signatures in notation
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2023-33957 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 377,238 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
github.com/notaryproject/notationReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
notation is a CLI tool to sign and verify OCI artifacts and container images. An attacker who has compromised a registry and added a high number of signatures to an artifact can cause denial of service of services on the machine, if a user runs notation inspect command on the same machine. The problem has been fixed in the release v1.0.0-rc.6. Users should upgrade their notation packages to v1.0.0-rc.6 or above. Users are advised to upgrade. Users unable to upgrade may restrict container registries to a set of secure and trusted container registries.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/notaryproject/notation | all versions | 1.0.0-rc.6go get github.com/notaryproject/notation@v1.0.0-rc.6 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/notaryproject/notation, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/notaryproject/notation to 1.0.0-rc.6 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-33957 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 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2023-33957 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2023-33957. 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-2023-33957 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2023-33957 across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.