CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2023-24809 — NetHack is a single player dungeon exploration game

Medium CVSS 5.5

NetHack is a single player dungeon exploration game. Starting with version 3.6.2 and prior to version 3.6.7, illegal input to the "C" (call) command can cause a buffer overflow and crash the NetHack process. This vulnerability may be a security issue for systems that have NetHack installed suid/sgid and for shared systems. For all systems, it may result in a process crash. This issue is resolved in NetHack 3.6.7. There are no known workarounds.

Severity
Medium
CVSS
5.5 (3.1)
Published
2023-02-17
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-120

Affected products

  • nethack / nethack

Matched remediation archetype

Buffer bounds, memory safety, and memory corruption

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Check exposure

  • Identify affected native-code versions, build flags, architectures, parsers, codecs, drivers, and input paths in all shipped artifacts.
  • Determine whether untrusted data reaches the affected routine and the process privilege, sandbox, and network exposure.
  • Confirm statically linked, vendored, firmware, and platform-provided copies, not only package-manager records.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the maintained upstream correction or replace the affected component, then rebuild every dependent artifact from clean inputs.
  • Adopt bounds-checked interfaces, validated sizes and integer conversions, clear ownership, and memory-safe components where practical.
  • Enable supported compiler and runtime hardening and add sanitized tests and fuzz regression seeds derived from non-weaponized fixtures.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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