CVE-2022-23094
libreswan: Malicious IKEv1 packet can cause libreswan to restart
Severity
ImportantRed Hat Product Security
CVSS 3.1
Review impact separately from score.
Published · January 11, 2022
Updated · November 22, 2025
Description
A vulnerability was found in libreswan. A malformed packet that is being rejected triggers a logging action that causes a NULL pointer dereference issue, leading to a crash of the pluto daemon.
CVSS score applicability
The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.
Mitigation
If all configured connections are using IKEv2, the IKEv1 subsystem can be disabled by adding the option ikev1-policy=drop to the "config setup" section of ipsec.conf. Alternatively, libreswan can be compiled with USE_IKEv1=false.
If all remote peers are on static IP addresses, a firewall rule blocking UDP port 500 and 4500 can be installed to prevent attackers from sending packets to the pluto IKE daemon.
If peers appear on dynamic IP addresses and IKEv1 connections must be supported, then no workarounds are known, and libreswan must be updated or patched.
CVSS / CWE
CVSS 3.1 · 7.5CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CWE-476 · NULL Pointer Dereference