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Vulnerability record/PUBLISHED/Published Jan 15, 2024 11:10:19 UTC

CVE-2023-4001

An authentication bypass flaw was found in GRUB due to the way that GRUB uses the UUID of a device to search for the configuration file that contains the password hash for the GRUB password protection feature. An attacker capable of attaching an external drive such as a USB stick containing a file system with a duplicate UUID (the same as in the "/boot/" file system) can bypass the GRUB password protection feature on UEFI systems, which enumerate removable drives before non-removable ones. This issue was introduced in a downstream patch in Red Hat's version of grub2 and does not affect the upstream package.

Base score6.8/ 10
SeverityMediumCVSS 3.1

Exploitability / impact

CVSS metric breakdown

Vector-derived attributes
Base severityMedium
Attack vectorPhysicalAV
Attack complexityLowAC
Privileges requiredNonePR
User interactionNoneUI
ScopeUnchangedS
Confidentiality impactHighC
Integrity impactHighI
Availability impactHighA
CVSS vector stringCVSS:3.1/AV:P/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

CVSS communicates standardized severity and impact characteristics. It does not establish whether a system is exploitable in your specific environment.

Record context

CVE Numbering Authorityredhat
Last updatedNov 7, 2026 11:32:44 UTC
PublishedJan 15, 2024 11:10:19 UTC
ReservedJul 28, 2023 20:57:15 UTC

Credits

  • Red Hat would like to thank Maxim Suhanov for reporting this issue.