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MEDIUM

Postgresql: role pg_signal_backend can signal certain superuser processes.

Published Dec 10, 2023

Description

A flaw was found in PostgreSQL involving the pg_cancel_backend role that signals background workers, including the logical replication launcher, autovacuum workers, and the autovacuum launcher. Successful exploitation requires a non-core extension with a less-resilient background worker and would affect that specific background worker only. This issue may allow a remote high privileged user to launch a denial of service (DoS) attack.

Affected products

Remediation

Vendor solution

Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base or stability.

Red Hat statement

Although the NVD assigns this issue a Moderate rating, Red Hat classifies it as Low severity because the practical impact is limited and requires multiple specific conditions. The vulnerability allows a privileged database role (pg_signal_backend) to send signals to certain background worker processes. However, PostgreSQL’s core background workers are designed to safely handle such signals and automatically recover without disrupting the database service. For a denial-of-service condition to occur, the system must be running a non-core extension that introduces a custom background worker which is not designed to restart safely after receiving a signal. In other words, the issue does not affect standard PostgreSQL installations and only impacts specialized configurations using third-party extensions. Even in affected scenarios, the impact is limited to disruption of a specific auxiliary background task and does not result in complete database failure, data loss, or compromise of confidentiality or integrity. Because exploitation requires a high-privileged user and affects only certain non-default configurations with limited operational impact, Red Hat considers the real-world risk to be Low.

Red Hat mitigation

Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base or stability.

Metrics

Weaknesses (1)

CWE-400

Uncontrolled Resource Consumption

References (29)

Change history (0)

No recorded changes yet.

Sources
CVE.org / MITRE
Status PUBLISHED
Assigner redhat
Published Dec 10, 2023
Updated Mar 2, 2026
Reserved Oct 31, 2023
Link CVE-2023-5870
CISA Vulnrichment
Updated Dec 19, 2023
NVD
Status Modified
Modified Jun 17, 2026
Link CVE-2023-5870
Red Hat
Severity Low
Public date Nov 9, 2023
Links CVE-2023-5870 - Bugzilla