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NTAP-20230803-0010 — CVE-2023-38408 OpenSSH Vulnerability in NetApp Products
Published 2023-08-03 · Updated 2025-05-29 · Status: Interim · Exploitation: Public · Severity: CRITICAL 9.8 · ONTAP affected: Yes
Product family: Active IQ Unified Manager · SolidFire / NetApp HCI · ONTAP | ONTAP-relevant | highest CVSS: 9.8
CVEs in this advisory
- CVE-2023-38408 — CRITICAL · CVSS 9.8 · site index
What the CVE records say
CVE-2023-38408 — 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.
Impact
Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could lead to disclosure of sensitive information, addition or modification of data, or Denial of Service (DoS).
Affected products
- Active IQ Unified Manager for VMware vSphere
- NetApp HCI Compute Node (Bootstrap OS)
- NetApp SolidFire & HCI Management Node
- NetApp SolidFire & HCI Storage Node (Element Software)
- ONTAP Select Deploy administration utility
Official fixes
- Active IQ Unified Manager for VMware vSphere — vendor fix ↗
- ONTAP Select Deploy administration utility — vendor fix ↗
References
What to do
- Check the affected products listed above against the official advisory's affected-versions table — that is where the exact ONTAP 9 release, ONTAP tool, or management product versions are named.
- If affected and a fixed release exists, plan the upgrade — see the ONTAP upgrade runbook.
- If exploitation is listed as "active", treat remediation as urgent and review exposure (management LIFs, ONTAP S3, SnapMirror endpoints).
- Harden in parallel: security hardening baseline and ransomware protection on ONTAP.
Related reading
- Common ONTAP problems (FAQ) — plain-language symptoms and fixes
- ONTAP security hardening — baseline lockdown guidance
- Ransomware protection on ONTAP — SnapLock, SnapMirror vaulting, Anomaly Detection
- ONTAP error messages index — EMS/WAFL/NFS/SnapMirror messages
- Every NetApp advisory published in 2023