ubuntu-cve-2023-6245
Vulnerability from osv_ubuntu
Published
2023-12-08 15:15
Modified
2025-10-24 05:01
Summary
Details

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 recoverable error when skipping the field and thus causing an infinite decoding loop. Canisters using affected versions of candid are exposed to denial of service by causing the decoding to run indefinitely until the canister traps due to reaching maximum instruction limit per execution round. Repeated exposure to the payload will result in degraded performance of the canister. Note: Canisters written in Motoko are unaffected.

Severity
7.5 (High)
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
7.5 (High)
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
N/A (UNKNOWN)
medium
References
To clipboard 

{
  "affected": [
    {
      "ecosystem_specific": {
        "binaries": [
          {
            "binary_name": "candid",
            "binary_version": "1.0.0~alpha+201804191824-24b36a9-0ubuntu2"
          }
        ]
      },
      "package": {
        "ecosystem": "Ubuntu:18.04:LTS",
        "name": "candid",
        "purl": "pkg:deb/ubuntu/candid@1.0.0~alpha+201804191824-24b36a9-0ubuntu2?arch=source\u0026distro=bionic"
      },
      "ranges": [
        {
          "events": [
            {
              "introduced": "0"
            }
          ],
          "type": "ECOSYSTEM"
        }
      ],
      "versions": [
        "1.0.0~alpha+201804191824-24b36a9-0ubuntu1",
        "1.0.0~alpha+201804191824-24b36a9-0ubuntu2"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "aliases": [],
  "details": "The Candid library causes a Denial of Service while parsing a specially crafted payload with \u0027empty\u0027 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 recoverable error when skipping the field and thus causing an infinite decoding loop. Canisters using affected versions of candid  are exposed to denial of service by causing the decoding to run indefinitely until the canister traps due to reaching maximum instruction limit per execution round. Repeated exposure to the payload will result in degraded performance of the canister. Note: Canisters written in Motoko are unaffected.",
  "id": "UBUNTU-CVE-2023-6245",
  "modified": "2025-10-24T05:01:38Z",
  "published": "2023-12-08T15:15:00Z",
  "references": [
    {
      "type": "REPORT",
      "url": "https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2023-6245"
    },
    {
      "type": "REPORT",
      "url": "https://github.com/dfinity/candid/pull/478"
    },
    {
      "type": "REPORT",
      "url": "https://internetcomputer.org/docs/current/references/candid-ref"
    },
    {
      "type": "REPORT",
      "url": "https://github.com/dfinity/candid/blob/master/spec/Candid.md"
    },
    {
      "type": "REPORT",
      "url": "https://github.com/dfinity/candid/security/advisories/GHSA-7787-p7x6-fq3j"
    },
    {
      "type": "REPORT",
      "url": "https://internetcomputer.org/docs/current/references/ic-interface-spec"
    },
    {
      "type": "REPORT",
      "url": "https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-6245"
    }
  ],
  "related": [],
  "schema_version": "1.7.0",
  "severity": [
    {
      "score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H",
      "type": "CVSS_V3"
    },
    {
      "score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H",
      "type": "CVSS_V3"
    },
    {
      "score": "medium",
      "type": "Ubuntu"
    }
  ],
  "upstream": [
    "CVE-2023-6245"
  ],
  "withdrawn": "2026-02-09T05:05:46Z"
}



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