CVE-2023-41893
Home assistant is an open source home automation. The audit team’s analyses confirmed that the redirect_uri and client_id are alterable when logging in. Consequently, the code parameter utilized to fetch the access_token post-authentication will be sent to the URL specified in the aforementioned parameters. Since an arbitrary URL is permitted and homeassistant.local represents the preferred, default domain likely used and trusted by many users, an attacker could leverage this weakness to manipulate a user and retrieve account access. Notably, this attack strategy is plausible if the victim has exposed their Home Assistant to the Internet, since after acquiring the victim’s access_token the adversary would need to utilize it directly towards the instance to achieve any pertinent malicious actions. To achieve this compromise attempt, the attacker must send a link with a redirect_uri that they control to the victim’s own Home Assistant instance. In the eventuality the victim authenticates via said link, the attacker would obtain code sent to the specified URL in redirect_uri, which can then be leveraged to fetch an access_token. Pertinently, an attacker could increase the efficacy of this strategy by registering a near identical domain to homeassistant.local, which at first glance may appear legitimate and thereby obfuscate any malicious intentions. This issue has been addressed in version 2023.9.0 and all users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.
| Software | From | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| home-assistant / home-assistant | - | 2023.9.0 |
homeassistant
|
- | 2023.9.0 |
- https://github.com/home-assistant/core/security/advisories/GHSA-qhhj-7hrc-gqj5
- https://github.com/pypa/advisory-database/tree/main/vulns/homeassistant/PYSEC-2023-214.yaml
- https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2023/10/19/security-audits-of-home-assistant
- https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2023/10/19/security-audits-of-home-assistant/
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A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.
CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) estimates technical severity, but it doesn't automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, affected asset criticality, known exploitation (proof-of-concept or in-the-wild), and whether compensating controls exist. A "Medium" CVSS on an exposed, production system can be more urgent than a "Critical" on an isolated, non-production host.
A vulnerability is the underlying weakness. An exploit is the method or code used to take advantage of it. A zero-day is a vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor or has no publicly available fix when attackers begin using it. In practice, risk increases sharply when exploitation becomes reliable or widespread.
Recurring findings usually come from incomplete Asset Discovery, inconsistent patch management, inherited images, and configuration drift. In modern environments, you also need to watch the software supply chain: dependencies, containers, build pipelines, and third-party services can reintroduce the same weakness even after you patch a single host. Unknown or unmanaged assets (often called Shadow IT) are a common reason the same issues resurface.
Use a simple, repeatable triage model: focus first on externally exposed assets, high-value systems (identity, VPN, email, production), vulnerabilities with known exploits, and issues that enable remote code execution or privilege escalation. Then enforce patch SLAs and track progress using consistent metrics so remediation is steady, not reactive.
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