CVE-2023-42916
MEDIUMCVE-2023-42916 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.5) Out-of-bounds Read vulnerability. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2023-12-04) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2023-12-04. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2023-12-25.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA (KEV catalog and SSVC triage) for CVE-2023-42916.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2023-42916 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 395,308 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the 10–50% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
An out-of-bounds read was addressed with improved input validation. This issue is fixed in iOS 17.1.2 and iPadOS 17.1.2, macOS Sonoma 14.1.2, Safari 17.1.2. Processing web content may disclose sensitive information. Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been exploited against versions of iOS before iOS 16.7.1.
Affected Products
ipadosappleiphone osapplemacosapplesafariappledebian linuxdebianfedorafedoraprojectResearch 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
VulnerabilityDetect
Identify every host running the affected component and compare the installed build against the fixed version below — for source-built or distro-packaged software the version string, not a lockfile, is the source of truth (`dpkg -l`, `rpm -q`, or the binary's own `--version`).
Remediation status
No fixed release is recorded for CVE-2023-42916 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
Constrain what reaches the vulnerable code: limit the size and shape of untrusted input, isolate the affected component in a sandboxed or least-privileged process, and enable the platform's memory-safety mitigations (ASLR, stack protector, hardened allocator) so an out-of-bounds access is more likely to fail closed than to be exploitable.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
The WebKitGTK package versions, as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise 8 and 9, are not affected by this vulnerability. This flaw is related to the JIT code, which is currently disabled by default on both Red Hat Enterprise Linux versions.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Extended Lifecycle Support | webkitgtk4-0:2.48.3-2.el7_9 | RHSA-2025:10364 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | webkit2gtk3-0:2.38.5-1.el8_8.5 | RHSA-2023:4202 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | webkit2gtk3-0:2.38.5-1.el9_2.3 | RHSA-2023:4201 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-42916 in your dependencies?
Find it across , including transitive dependencies.