Focus on libreswan vulnerabilities and metrics.
Last updated: 08 Mar 2025, 23:25 UTC
This page consolidates all known Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) associated with libreswan. We track both calendar-based metrics (using fixed periods) and rolling metrics (using gliding windows) to give you a comprehensive view of security trends and risk evolution. Use these insights to assess risk and plan your patching strategy.
For a broader perspective on cybersecurity threats, explore the comprehensive list of CVEs by vendor and product. Stay updated on critical vulnerabilities affecting major software and hardware providers.
Total libreswan CVEs: 15
Earliest CVE date: 09 Jul 2013, 17:55 UTC
Latest CVE date: 25 Aug 2023, 21:15 UTC
Latest CVE reference: CVE-2023-38712
30-day Count (Rolling): 0
365-day Count (Rolling): 0
Calendar-based Variation
Calendar-based Variation compares a fixed calendar period (e.g., this month versus the same month last year), while Rolling Growth Rate uses a continuous window (e.g., last 30 days versus the previous 30 days) to capture trends independent of calendar boundaries.
Month Variation (Calendar): 0%
Year Variation (Calendar): -100.0%
Month Growth Rate (30-day Rolling): 0.0%
Year Growth Rate (365-day Rolling): -100.0%
Average CVSS: 3.61
Max CVSS: 9.3
Critical CVEs (≥9): 1
| Range | Count |
|---|---|
| 0.0-3.9 | 7 |
| 4.0-6.9 | 12 |
| 7.0-8.9 | 0 |
| 9.0-10.0 | 1 |
These are the five CVEs with the highest CVSS scores for libreswan, sorted by severity first and recency.
An issue was discovered in Libreswan 3.x and 4.x before 4.12. When an IKEv1 ISAKMP SA Informational Exchange packet contains a Delete/Notify payload followed by further Notifies that act on the ISAKMP SA, such as a duplicated Delete/Notify message, a NULL pointer dereference on the deleted state causes the pluto daemon to crash and restart.
An issue was discovered in Libreswan before 4.12. When an IKEv1 Quick Mode connection configured with ID_IPV4_ADDR or ID_IPV6_ADDR receives an IDcr payload with ID_FQDN, a NULL pointer dereference causes a crash and restart of the pluto daemon. NOTE: the earliest affected version is 4.6.
An issue was discovered in Libreswan before 4.12. When an IKEv2 Child SA REKEY packet contains an invalid IPsec protocol ID number of 0 or 1, an error notify INVALID_SPI is sent back. The notify payload's protocol ID is copied from the incoming packet, but the code that verifies outgoing packets fails an assertion that the protocol ID must be ESP (2) or AH(3) and causes the pluto daemon to crash and restart. NOTE: the earliest affected version is 3.20.
pluto in Libreswan before 4.11 allows a denial of service (responder SPI mishandling and daemon crash) via unauthenticated IKEv1 Aggressive Mode packets. The earliest affected version is 3.28.
A vulnerability was found in the libreswan library. This security issue occurs when an IKEv1 Aggressive Mode packet is received with only unacceptable crypto algorithms, and the response packet is not sent with a zero responder SPI. When a subsequent packet is received where the sender reuses the libreswan responder SPI as its own initiator SPI, the pluto daemon state machine crashes. No remote code execution is possible. This CVE exists because of a CVE-2023-30570 security regression for libreswan package in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.8 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2.
Libreswan 4.9 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (assert failure and daemon restart) via crafted TS payload with an incorrect selector length.
Libreswan 4.2 through 4.5 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (NULL pointer dereference and daemon crash) via a crafted IKEv1 packet because pluto/ikev1.c wrongly expects that a state object exists. This is fixed in 4.6.
An out-of-bounds buffer read flaw was found in the pluto daemon of libreswan from versions 3.27 till 3.31 where, an unauthenticated attacker could use this flaw to crash libreswan by sending specially-crafted IKEv1 Informational Exchange packets. The daemon respawns after the crash.
The Libreswan Project has found a vulnerability in the processing of IKEv1 informational exchange packets which are encrypted and integrity protected using the established IKE SA encryption and integrity keys, but as a receiver, the integrity check value was not verified. This issue affects versions before 3.29.
In Libreswan 3.27 an assertion failure can lead to a pluto IKE daemon restart. An attacker can trigger a NULL pointer dereference by initiating an IKEv2 IKE_SA_INIT exchange, followed by a bogus INFORMATIONAL exchange instead of the normallly expected IKE_AUTH exchange. This affects send_v2N_spi_response_from_state() in programs/pluto/ikev2_send.c that will then trigger a NULL pointer dereference leading to a restart of libreswan.
libreswan before 3.18 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (NULL pointer dereference and pluto daemon restart).
programs/pluto/ikev1.c in libreswan before 3.17 retransmits in initial-responder states, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (traffic amplification) via a spoofed UDP packet. NOTE: the original behavior complies with the IKEv1 protocol, but has a required security update from the libreswan vendor; as of 2016-06-10, it is expected that several other IKEv1 implementations will have vendor-required security updates, with separate CVE IDs assigned to each.
Libreswan 3.16 might allow remote attackers to cause a denial of service (daemon restart) via an IKEv2 aes_xcbc transform.
The pluto IKE daemon in libreswan before 3.15 and Openswan before 2.6.45, when built with NSS, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (assertion failure and daemon restart) via a zero DH g^x value in a KE payload in a IKE packet.
libreswan 3.9 through 3.12 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (daemon restart) via an IKEv1 packet with (1) unassigned bits set in the IPSEC DOI value or (2) the next payload value set to ISAKMP_NEXT_SAK.
Libreswan 3.7 and earlier allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (NULL pointer dereference and IKE daemon restart) via IKEv2 packets that lack expected payloads.
The ikev2parent_inI1outR1 function in pluto/ikev2_parent.c in libreswan before 3.7 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (restart) via an IKEv2 I1 notification without a KE payload.
Race condition in the libreswan.spec files for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Fedora packages in libreswan 3.6 has unspecified impact and attack vectors, involving the /var/tmp/libreswan-nss-pwd temporary file.
Libreswan 3.6 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via a small length value and (1) no version or (2) an invalid major number in an IKE packet.
Buffer overflow in the atodn function in libreswan 3.0 and 3.1, when Opportunistic Encryption is enabled and an RSA key is being used, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (pluto IKE daemon crash) and possibly execute arbitrary code via crafted DNS TXT records. NOTE: this might be the same vulnerability as CVE-2013-2053 and CVE-2013-2054.