AMF crash via unreleased malformed UE entries
Published Nov 1, 2022 · Updated May 2, 2025
Memory leak in Open5GS 2.4.11 AMF NGAP handling allows remote attackers to crash the service with malformed UE attachment traffic. ngap_handle_initial_ue_message allocates a ran_ue entry after validating RAN_UE_NGAP_ID, then returns when UserLocationInformation is absent without calling ran_ue_remove. An attacker able to send NGAP InitialUEMessage traffic can exhaust the default 1,024-entry ran_ue_pool and crash the AMF after 1,024 malformed messages.
Summary
What happened
Memory leak in Open5GS 2.4.11 AMF NGAP handling allows remote attackers to crash the service with malformed UE attachment traffic. ngap_handle_initial_ue_message allocates a ran_ue entry after validating RAN_UE_NGAP_ID, then returns when UserLocationInformation is absent without calling ran_ue_remove. An attacker able to send NGAP InitialUEMessage traffic can exhaust the default 1,024-entry ran_ue_pool and crash the AMF after 1,024 malformed messages.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2022-43223
- Published
- Nov 1, 2022
- Updated
- May 2, 2025
- Vendor
- Unknown vendor
- Product
- Unknown product
- Classifications
- CWE-401, T1499.002
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- unauthenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Nov 1, 2022CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- May 2, 2025Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
Compare your product and version with the public record. A matching version still requires validation against your environment.
Is a vulnerable build present?
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Affected products and versions are unavailable in this record.
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
- Open5gs_bugreport2 malformed InitialUEMessage proof of conceptproof of concept · demonstrated
Labels summarize the accepted research assessment. They do not indicate a test against your environment.
Technologies
Your stack
See the directory against your own environment.
Your stack
Check the software in your environment
Book a demo to see how Hinoki identifies affected software and validates exploitability in your environment.
Book a demo