Reference page — cumulative record through Monday, October 19, 2026 UTC. Reference pages update as the archive grows; only dated daily editions are immutable pages of record.

CVE-2023-38408

CVE-2023-38408CRITICAL

n/a n/a — The PKCS#11 feature in ssh-agent in OpenSSH before 9.3p2 has an insufficiently trustworthy search path, leading to remote code execution …

  AV  AC  PR  UI  S  C  I  A   CVSS    EPSS   %ile   KEV
   N   L   N   N  U  H  H  H    9.8   .7970   99.6     —

AFFECTED
  Product  Versions  Fixed
  n/a      n/a –     —

TIMELINE
  Jul 17  Reserved by mitre
  Jul 20  Published (CNA: mitre)
  Oct 15  EXPLOIT PUBLISHED — CVE-2023-38408. Public exploit reference added.

CWE-428 · CNA: mitre · CVSS v3.1 · 21 references · NVD status: Modified

Description

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.

Lifecycle

Complete event history — 3 events, chronological
Date	Event	Detail
July 17, 2023	Reserved	Reserved by mitre
July 20, 2023	Published	Published (CNA: mitre)
October 15, 2026	EXPLOIT PUBLISHED	EXPLOIT PUBLISHED — CVE-2023-38408. Public exploit reference added.

Affected

Affected products and packages — 1 row
Vendor	Product / Package	Ecosystem	Version introduced	Fixed
n/a	n/a	—	n/a	—

Weaknesses

CWE-428

References (21)

http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/173661/OpenSSH-Forwarded-SSH-Agent-Remote-Code-Execution.html [Exploit, Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry]
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2023/07/20/1 [Exploit, Mailing List, Third Party Advisory]
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2023/07/20/2 [Mailing List, Third Party Advisory]
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 [Third Party Advisory]
https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-398330.html
https://github.com/openbsd/src/commit/7bc29a9d5cd697290aa056e94ecee6253d3425f8 [Patch]
https://github.com/openbsd/src/commit/f03a4faa55c4ce0818324701dadbf91988d7351d [Patch]
https://github.com/openbsd/src/commit/f8f5a6b003981bb824329dc987d101977beda7ca [Patch]
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 [Issue Tracking, Patch]
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202307-01 [Third Party Advisory]
https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20230803-0010/
https://support.apple.com/kb/HT213940
https://www.openssh.com/security.html [Vendor Advisory]
https://www.openssh.com/txt/release-9.3p2 [Release Notes]
https://www.qualys.com/2023/07/19/cve-2023-38408/rce-openssh-forwarded-ssh-agent.txt [Exploit, Third Party Advisory]
https://www.vicarius.io/vsociety/posts/exploring-opensshs-agent-forwarding-rce-cve-2023-38408

Authoritative record: CVE-2023-38408 at cve.org

Weaknesses: CWE-428

About this page

This is a reference page, not a dated page of record. It assembles the complete lifecycle of CVE-2023-38408 from the CVE Program record, NVD enrichment, the CISA KEV catalog, EPSS, and OSV advisories. The box score's numbers (CVSS, EPSS, KEV status) are current as of Monday, October 19, 2026 UTC and are re-derived as the archive grows; only dated daily editions are immutable pages of record. The authoritative source for this identifier is cve.org.