CVE-2023-5954 — vault
MEDIUMCVE-2023-5954 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.9) CWE-401 vulnerability in github.com/hashicorp/vault. A fix is available for github.com/hashicorp/vault — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Vault Requests Triggering Policy Checks May Lead To Unbounded Memory Consumption
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-2023-5954 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 378,156 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/hashicorp/vault🐹github.com/hashicorp/vault🐹github.com/hashicorp/vaultReal-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
HashiCorp Vault and Vault Enterprise inbound client requests triggering a policy check can lead to an unbounded consumption of memory. A large number of these requests may lead to denial-of-service. Fixed in Vault 1.15.2, 1.14.6, and 1.13.10.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/hashicorp/vault | all versions | 1.13.10go get github.com/hashicorp/vault@v1.13.10 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/hashicorp/vault | ≥ 1.14.0&&< 1.14.6 | 1.14.6go get github.com/hashicorp/vault@v1.14.6 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/hashicorp/vault | ≥ 1.15.0&&< 1.15.2 | 1.15.2go get github.com/hashicorp/vault@v1.15.2 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/hashicorp/vault, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/hashicorp/vault to 1.13.10 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-5954 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-2023-5954 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2023-5954. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
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.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.17 | openshift4/ose-installer-rhel9:v4.17.0-202409122204.p0.gdfd4c08.assembly.stream.el9 | RHSA-2024:3718 |
| RHODF-4.15-RHEL-9 | odf4/mcg-rhel9-operator:v4.15.0-39 | RHSA-2024:1383 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-5954 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2023-5954 across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.