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🛡️ CVE-2023-38039 on Alpine — curl

⚪ Unknown ✅ No Known Exploit OSV
N/A
CVSS Score
0 Low4 Medium7 High9 Critical10

Description

When curl retrieves an HTTP response, it stores the incoming headers so that

they can be accessed later via the libcurl headers API.

However, curl did not have a limit in how many or how large headers it would

accept in a response, allowing a malicious server to stream an endless series

of headers and eventually cause curl to run out of heap memory.

Distribution advisory

This page covers CVE-2023-38039 as tracked by Alpine, for the package curl. The fix is available in version 8.3.0-r0; earlier versions remain affected.

How this vulnerability can be exploited

This issue can be reached over the network, attack complexity is low, an attacker needs no privileges on the target. No user interaction is required. The scope is unchanged, so the impact stays within the vulnerable component. Rated impact: confidentiality none, integrity none, availability high.

CVSS metrics in full

The score comes from this vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

  • Attack vector: Network — reachable from anywhere that can route to the service.
  • Attack complexity: Low — the attack works reliably, with no preparation.
  • Privileges required: None — an unauthenticated stranger can try it.
  • User interaction: None — nobody has to be tricked into anything.
  • Scope: Unchanged — the damage stays inside the vulnerable component.
  • Confidentiality impact: None.
  • Integrity impact: None.
  • Availability impact: High — total loss, or loss the attacker controls.

Weakness class

ALPINE-CVE-2023-38039 is classified as CWE-770: Allocation of Resources Without Limits. Resources are allocated on request with no cap, so a client can exhaust them.

Affected software

ALPINE-CVE-2023-38039 is recorded against 1 package.

  • curl (from 7.84.0 up to 8.3.0-r0)

Timeline and source

Published on 15 September 2023 and last revised on 7 August 2026. No public exploit is currently recorded for this entry. Record sourced from OSV.

References

security.alpinelinux.org (Advisory)

Other advisories for this package

curl has other advisories on record. If you are patching this one, these are worth checking on the same host:

Same weakness in other software

These advisories are the same class of weakness (CWE-770: Allocation of Resources Without Limits) in other software:

CVE-2023-38039 on other distributions

Each distribution ships its own build and its own fixed version. Pick the one you run:

Details

Severity Unknown
CVSS Score N/A
CVSS Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CWE N/A
Public Exploit ✅ No
Source OSV
Published 2023-09-15
Updated 2026-08-20
Modified 2026-08-07
Fix URL N/A

Affected Packages

Software From version Fixed in
curl 7.84.0 8.3.0-r0

Site Security Check

Is curl part of your stack?

ALPINE-CVE-2023-38039 is rated CVSS 7.5 High. BotEraser scans your installation against known CVE records and tells you whether this vulnerability applies to the versions you actually run.

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ⓘ Data Notice: The information presented above has been compiled from publicly available internet sources. Boteraser aggregates this data solely for informational purposes and does not independently classify, evaluate, or endorse any findings about the vulnerabilities listed. The accuracy and completeness of this information is the sole responsibility of the original publishers. Boteraser and its operators accept no liability for any decisions made based on this data.

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