CVE-2023-24056 — In pkgconf through 1

In pkgconf through 1.9.3, variable duplication can cause unbounded string expansion due to incorrect checks in libpkgconf/tuple.c:pkgconf_tuple_parse. For example, a .pc file containing a few hundred bytes can expand to one billion bytes.

01What is this vulnerability?

In pkgconf through 1.9.3, variable duplication can cause unbounded string expansion due to incorrect checks in libpkgconf/tuple.c:pkgconf_tuple_parse. For example, a .pc file containing a few hundred bytes can expand to one billion bytes.

02Affected products

Vendor	Product	Versions
n	a / n/a	n/a

03Active exploitation status

Not currently listed on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. EPSS is the best forward-looking signal — see the EPSS row above.

04Recommended remediation

• Patch to a fixed version listed in the vendor advisory (see references below).
• Mitigate with WAF rules, network egress filters, or feature flags where the patch is not yet available.
• Hunt historical logs for exploitation indicators — see Detection signatures below.

05Technical details

For the full vendor write-up, exploit chains, and reference implementations, see the references list in section 09.

06Detection signatures

Ask SARA in chat to draft a starting detection for this CVE in your stack of choice.

07Related CVEs

No directly-cited follow-up CVEs in the KB record for this advisory. The references list in section 09 carries the vendor cross-references.

08Timeline

• Published: 2023-01-22T00:00:00.000Z
• Last modified: 2025-04-02T15:45:00.912Z

09References

• nullprogram.com — https://nullprogram.com/blog/2023/01/18/
• gitea.treehouse.systems — https://gitea.treehouse.systems/ariadne/pkgconf/commit/628b2b2bafa5d3a2017193ddf…
• github.com — https://github.com/pkgconf/pkgconf/tags