CVE-2023-53156 is a medium-severity (CVSS 4.5) CWE-190 vulnerability in transpose. A fix is available for transpose — see the affected versions and patch details below.
transpose: Buffer overflow due to integer overflow
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-2023-53156.
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-2023-53156 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 379,145 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
transposeReal-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
Given the function transpose::transpose:
fn transpose<T: Copy>(input: &[T], output: &mut [T], input_width: usize, input_height: usize)
The safety check input_width * input_height == output.len() can fail due to input_width * input_height overflowing in such a way that it equals output.len().
As a result of failing the safety check, memory past the end of output is written to. This only occurs in release mode since * panics on overflow in debug mode.
Exploiting this issue requires the caller to pass input_width and input_height arguments such that multiplying them overflows, and the overflown result equals the lengths of input and output slices.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | transpose | ≥ 0.1.0&&< 0.2.3 | 0.2.3cargo update -p transpose --precise 0.2.3 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for transpose, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update transpose to 0.2.3 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-53156 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-2023-53156 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2023-53156. 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-2023-53156 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2023-53156 across crates.io dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.