What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2023-33221: Heap Buffer Overflow when reading DESFire card

• Severity: critical (CVSS 9.8 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 1.0% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2023-12-15 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-122

Description

When reading DesFire keys, the function that reads the card isn't properly checking the boundaries when copying internally the data received. This allows a heap based buffer overflow that could lead to a potential Remote Code Execution on the targeted device. This is especially problematic if you use Default DESFire key.

Affected products

• IDEMIA Morphowave Compact Firmware: before 2.12.2 — fixed in 2.12.2
• IDEMIA Morphowave Sp Firmware: before 1.2.7 — fixed in 1.2.7
• IDEMIA Morphowave Xp Firmware: before 2.12.2 — fixed in 2.12.2
• IDEMIA Sigma Extreme Firmware: before 4.15.5 — fixed in 4.15.5
• IDEMIA Sigma Lite+ Firmware: before 4.15.5 — fixed in 4.15.5
• IDEMIA Sigma Lite Firmware: before 4.15.5 — fixed in 4.15.5
• IDEMIA Sigma Wide Firmware: before 4.15.5 — fixed in 4.15.5
• IDEMIA Visionpass Firmware: before 2.12.2 — fixed in 2.12.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: IDEMIA Morphowave Compact Firmware 2.12.2; IDEMIA Morphowave Sp Firmware 1.2.7; IDEMIA Morphowave Xp Firmware 2.12.2; IDEMIA Sigma Extreme Firmware 4.15.5; IDEMIA Sigma Lite+ Firmware 4.15.5; IDEMIA Sigma Lite Firmware 4.15.5; IDEMIA Sigma Wide Firmware 4.15.5; IDEMIA Visionpass Firmware 2.12.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://www.idemia.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Security-Advisory-SA-2023-05-2.pdf
• https://www.idemia.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Security-Advisory-SA-2023-05-2.pdf

Get alerted when CVE-2023-33221 or the next vulnerability affects your stack