CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2023-36673 — An issue was discovered in Avira Phantom VPN through 2.23.1 for macOS

High CVSS 7.3

An issue was discovered in Avira Phantom VPN through 2.23.1 for macOS. The VPN client insecurely configures the operating system such that all IP traffic to the VPN server's IP address is sent in plaintext outside the VPN tunnel, even if this traffic is not generated by the VPN client, while simultaneously using plaintext DNS to look up the VPN server's IP address. This allows an adversary to trick the victim into sending traffic to arbitrary IP addresses in plaintext outside the VPN tunnel. NOTE: the tunnelcrack.mathyvanhoef.com website uses this CVE ID to refer more generally to "ServerIP attack, combined with DNS spoofing, that can leak traffic to an arbitrary IP address" rather than to only Avira Phantom VPN.

Severity
High
CVSS
7.3 (3.1)
Published
2023-08-09
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-319

Affected products

  • avira / phantom_vpn

Matched remediation archetype

Cryptography, certificate, signature, and channel validation

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Inventory affected algorithms, key uses, trust stores, certificate validation settings, random sources, and plaintext channels across clients and services.
  • Determine which secrets, identities, signatures, or data protections depend on the affected primitive or validation path.
  • Check debug, compatibility, fallback, and hostname or audience override settings in build and runtime configuration.

Remediate safely

  • Use a maintained platform cryptographic API with approved algorithms, modes, parameters, randomness, and full peer identity validation.
  • Remove insecure fallback and validation bypasses; separate keys by purpose and load them from managed secret storage.
  • Plan rotation or reissuance for affected keys, certificates, tokens, hashes, or ciphertext and document compatibility sequencing.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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