Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
curl before 7.88.0 could mishandle its HSTS cache during parallel transfers. A site that should have been forced to HTTPS might later be contacted over plain HTTP, risking exposure or tampering of sensitive traffic. The issue is medium severity and fixed in 7.88.0.
Executive priority
Treat as a scheduled security update unless curl protects sensitive data over untrusted networks. Prioritize faster remediation for automation, appliances, or services that use curl heavily with parallel transfers.
Technical view
The flaw is CWE-319 in curl HSTS handling. When multiple URLs are requested in parallel, the HSTS cache file could be overwritten by the most recently completed transfer. A later HTTP-only request to an earlier HSTS host might not be upgraded to HTTPS.
Likely exposure
Exposure is most likely where curl before 7.88.0 is used with HSTS support, parallel transfers, and HTTP-form URLs for hosts expected to upgrade to HTTPS. Normal HTTPS-only usage is less directly exposed.
Exploitation context
The provided sources do not show CISA KEV listing or active exploitation. Practical risk depends on traffic sensitivity and whether an attacker can observe or influence cleartext network paths after a missed HSTS upgrade.
Researcher notes
The bug is state-management related, not a broad TLS bypass. The key condition is HSTS cache overwrite during parallel transfers, causing missed upgrade on later HTTP-only requests to a prior host. Evidence is sufficient for affected version and fix, but exploit-in-the-wild evidence is absent here.
Mitigation direction
- Upgrade curl to 7.88.0 or a vendor-fixed later package.
- Update operating system packages that bundle curl from trusted repositories.
- Review Gentoo, NetApp, and applicable vendor advisories for platform-specific fixes.
- Prefer explicit HTTPS URLs for sensitive transfers, especially before patching.
- Avoid relying on affected HSTS cache behavior in parallel-transfer workflows until remediated.
Validation and detection
- Inventory curl versions and flag releases earlier than 7.88.0.
- Identify applications or scripts using curl HSTS with parallel transfers.
- Check package changelogs or vendor advisories for the CVE fix.
- Confirm sensitive endpoints are requested with HTTPS URLs.
- Run regression tests for expected HTTPS-only transfer behavior after updating.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.
CWE-319: Exact CWE lookup
Use the exact CWE identifier as the starting point before reviewing related ATT&CK behavior. Open the exact CWE lookup page first, then review the ATT&CK searches from that MITRE weakness context. This is a Glexia lookup hint, not an official ATT&CK mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupCVE-2023-23915 mapping review
Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.
Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- Medium
- CVSS
- 6.5 (3.1)
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
CVSS vector scores
1 official scoreWe collect every scored CVSS vector available in the official CNA and ADP containers. When more than one version is present, the table keeps the source vectors side by side instead of collapsing them into the highest score.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N3.92.5Primary CVE scoreVulnerability scoring details
Base CVSS 3.1 score
6.5MediumVector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- https://hackerone.com/reports/1826048CVE reference
- https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20230309-0006/CVE reference
- GLSA-202310-12CVE reference · vendor-advisory
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.
Cleartext Transmission of Sensitive Information
Cleartext Transmission of Sensitive Information represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.