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NTAP-20230908-0004 — CVE-2023-36054 MIT Kerberos 5 Vulnerability in NetApp Products
Published 2023-09-08 · Updated 2025-05-15 · Status: Interim · Exploitation: Public · Severity: MEDIUM 6.5 · ONTAP affected: Yes
Official advisory: NTAP-20230908-0004 on security.netapp.com ↗. Affected versions, fixed releases, and workarounds live there — this page is a summary.
Product family: Active IQ Unified Manager · SolidFire / NetApp HCI · ONTAP | ONTAP-relevant | highest CVSS: 6.5
CVEs in this advisory
- CVE-2023-36054 — MEDIUM · CVSS 6.5 · site index
What the CVE records say
CVE-2023-36054 — lib/kadm5/kadm_rpc_xdr.c in MIT Kerberos 5 (aka krb5) before 1.20.2 and 1.21.x before 1.21.1 frees an uninitialized pointer. A remote authenticated user can trigger a kadmind crash. This occurs because _xdr_kadm5_principal_ent_rec does not validate the relationship between n_key_data and the key_data array count.
Impact
Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could lead to Denial of Service (DoS).
Affected products
- Active IQ Unified Manager for VMware vSphere
- Management Services for Element Software and NetApp HCI
- NetApp HCI Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) - H610C
- NetApp HCI Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) - H610S
- NetApp HCI Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) - H615C
- ONTAP 9
- ONTAP tools for VMware vSphere 9
- NetApp SolidFire & HCI Management Node
Official fixes
- Management Services for Element Software and NetApp HCI — vendor fix ↗
- ONTAP 9 — vendor fix ↗
- ONTAP 9 — vendor fix ↗
- ONTAP 9 — vendor fix ↗
- ONTAP 9 — vendor fix ↗
- ONTAP 9 — vendor fix ↗
- ONTAP 9 — vendor fix ↗
- ONTAP tools for VMware vSphere 9 — vendor fix ↗
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