Arbitrary Code Injection The advisory has been revoked - it doesn't affect any version of package openssh-clients (opens in a new tab)
Threat Intelligence
Snyk has a proof-of-concept or detailed explanation of how to exploit this vulnerability.
The probability is the direct output of the EPSS model, and conveys an overall sense of the threat of exploitation in the wild. The percentile measures the EPSS probability relative to all known EPSS scores. Note: This data is updated daily, relying on the latest available EPSS model version. Check out the EPSS documentation for more details.
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Test your applications- Snyk IDSNYK-RHEL9-OPENSSHCLIENTS-12355694
- published1 Sept 2025
- disclosed19 Jul 2023
Introduced: 19 Jul 2023
CVE-2023-38408 (opens in a new tab)Amendment
The Red Hat security team deemed this advisory irrelevant for RHEL:9.
NVD Description
Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream openssh-clients package and not the openssh-clients package as distributed by RHEL.
The PKCS#11 feature in ssh-agent in OpenSSH before 9.3p2 has an insufficiently trustworthy search path, leading to remote code execution if an agent is forwarded to an attacker-controlled system. (Code in /usr/lib is not necessarily safe for loading into ssh-agent.) NOTE: this issue exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2016-10009.
References
- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-38408
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/CEBTJJINE2I3FHAUKKNQWMFGYMLSMWKQ/
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/RAXVQS6ZYTULFAK3TEJHRLKZALJS3AOU/
- http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/173661/OpenSSH-Forwarded-SSH-Agent-Remote-Code-Execution.html
- http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2023/07/20/1
- http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2023/07/20/2
- http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2023/09/22/11
- http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2023/09/22/9
- https://blog.qualys.com/vulnerabilities-threat-research/2023/07/19/cve-2023-38408-remote-code-execution-in-opensshs-forwarded-ssh-agent
- https://github.com/openbsd/src/commit/7bc29a9d5cd697290aa056e94ecee6253d3425f8
- https://github.com/openbsd/src/commit/f03a4faa55c4ce0818324701dadbf91988d7351d
- https://github.com/openbsd/src/commit/f8f5a6b003981bb824329dc987d101977beda7ca
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2023/08/msg00021.html
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/CEBTJJINE2I3FHAUKKNQWMFGYMLSMWKQ/
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/RAXVQS6ZYTULFAK3TEJHRLKZALJS3AOU/
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36790196
- https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202307-01
- https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20230803-0010/
- https://support.apple.com/kb/HT213940
- https://www.openssh.com/security.html
- https://www.openssh.com/txt/release-9.3p2
- https://www.qualys.com/2023/07/19/cve-2023-38408/rce-openssh-forwarded-ssh-agent.txt
- https://www.vicarius.io/vsociety/posts/exploring-opensshs-agent-forwarding-rce-cve-2023-38408
- https://github.com/kali-mx/CVE-2023-38408