CVE-2023-40661 — Several memory vulnerabilities were identified within the OpenSC packages, parti

Several memory vulnerabilities were identified within the OpenSC packages, particularly in the card enrollment process using pkcs15-init when a user or administrator enrolls cards. To take advantage of these flaws, an attacker must have physical access to the computer system and

01What is this vulnerability?

Several memory vulnerabilities were identified within the OpenSC packages, particularly in the card enrollment process using pkcs15-init when a user or administrator enrolls cards. To take advantage of these flaws, an attacker must have physical access to the computer system and employ a custom-crafted USB device or smart card to manipulate responses to APDUs. This manipulation can potentially…

02Affected products

Vendor	Product	Versions
?	?	0
Red Hat	Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8	0:0.20.0-7.el8_9
Red Hat	Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9	0:0.23.0-3.el9_3
Red Hat	Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7	unspecified

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

Open the Sigma generator with a pre-filled prompt for this CVE to draft a starting detection in your stack of choice:

Open in Sigma generator →

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: 2023-11-06T16:58:43.029Z
• Last modified: 2025-11-06T22:59:01.794Z

09References

• access.redhat.com — https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2023:7876
• access.redhat.com — https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2023:7879
• access.redhat.com — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-40661
• bugzilla.redhat.com — https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2240913
• github.com — https://github.com/OpenSC/OpenSC/issues/2792#issuecomment-1674806651
• github.com — https://github.com/OpenSC/OpenSC/releases/tag/0.24.0-rc1
• github.com — https://github.com/OpenSC/OpenSC/wiki/OpenSC-security-advisories