CVE-2023-6245 — The Candid library causes a Denial of Service while parsing a specially crafted

The Candid library causes a Denial of Service while parsing a specially crafted payload with 'empty' data type. For example, if the payload is `record { * ; empty }` and the canister interface expects `record { * }` then the Rust candid decoder treats empty as an extra

01What is this vulnerability?

The Candid library causes a Denial of Service while parsing a specially crafted payload with 'empty' data type. For example, if the payload is `record { * ; empty }` and the canister interface expects `record { * }` then the Rust candid decoder treats empty as an extra field required by the type. The problem with the type empty is that the candid Rust library wrongly categorizes empty as a…

02Affected products

Vendor	Product	Versions
Internet Computer	Candid	0.9.0

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: 2023-12-08T14:26:09.331Z
• Last modified: 2024-12-02T14:33:16.496Z

09References

• github.com — https://github.com/dfinity/candid/pull/478
• internetcomputer.org — https://internetcomputer.org/docs/current/references/candid-ref
• github.com — https://github.com/dfinity/candid/blob/master/spec/Candid.md
• github.com — https://github.com/dfinity/candid/security/advisories/GHSA-7787-p7x6-fq3j
• internetcomputer.org — https://internetcomputer.org/docs/current/references/ic-interface-spec