CVE-2023-23583

CVE-2023-23583, also known as Reptar by Google, is a significant vulnerability identified in Intel's Sapphire Rapids, Alder Lake, and Raptor Lake chip families. This flaw was reported by Thomas Claburn and has been assigned a CVSS 3.0 score of 8.8 out of 10, indicating its high severity. The vulnerability, designated as INTEL-SA-00950, prompted the release of an out-of-band patch to address this privilege escalation flaw, as documented in November 2023. The root cause of CVE-2023-23583 lies in the way redundant instruction prefixes are interpreted by the CPU. According to a report provided by Google to The Register, this interpretation issue can enable security boundaries to be bypassed, potentially leading to unauthorized access or control over affected systems. This flaw is essentially a software design or implementation error that allows for unintended privilege escalation. In response to the identification of this vulnerability, an out-of-band patch was issued to mitigate the risk associated with the privilege escalation flaw. The quick response from Intel indicates the seriousness of the flaw and the potential implications if left unaddressed. Users of the affected Intel chip families are strongly advised to apply the patch immediately to protect their systems from potential exploitation.