CVE-2001-1405 in Bugzilla
Summary
by MITRE
Bugzilla before 2.14 does not restrict access to sanitycheck.cgi, which allows local users to cause a denial of service (CPU consumption) via a flood of requests to sanitycheck.cgi.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 06/04/2018
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2001-1405 affects Bugzilla versions prior to 2.14 and represents a critical access control flaw that enables local attackers to perform denial of service attacks against the system. This vulnerability specifically targets the sanitycheck.cgi script, which is designed to verify the proper functioning of Bugzilla's components and configuration. The flaw stems from insufficient access controls that fail to restrict who can execute this particular script, creating an unintended attack surface that can be exploited by malicious users with local system access.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability resides in the lack of proper authentication and authorization checks within the Bugzilla application's CGI scripts. The sanitycheck.cgi script, when accessible to unauthorized users, consumes excessive CPU resources when subjected to multiple concurrent requests, effectively exhausting system processing power and rendering the service unavailable to legitimate users. This behavior constitutes a classic resource exhaustion attack pattern that can be executed through simple flooding techniques without requiring sophisticated exploitation methods. The vulnerability demonstrates poor input validation and access control implementation, which aligns with CWE-284 access control weaknesses and represents a failure in the principle of least privilege.
The operational impact of CVE-2001-1405 extends beyond simple service disruption to potentially compromise the entire Bugzilla deployment and underlying system resources. Local users who can access the system can leverage this vulnerability to consume all available CPU cycles, causing the application to become unresponsive and preventing legitimate administrators from accessing the bug tracking system. This type of denial of service attack can be particularly damaging in environments where Bugzilla serves as a critical communication platform for development teams and system administrators. The vulnerability affects the availability aspect of the CIA triad and can be classified under the ATT&CK technique T1499.004 for network denial of service attacks, though it operates at the application layer rather than network infrastructure level.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2001-1405 require immediate implementation of access restriction controls for the sanitycheck.cgi script. System administrators should ensure that only authorized users with proper privileges can execute this script, typically through modifying the web server configuration files to restrict access to specific IP addresses or user groups. The most effective long-term solution involves upgrading to Bugzilla version 2.14 or later, where proper access controls have been implemented to prevent unauthorized execution of the sanitycheck.cgi script. Additionally, administrators should implement monitoring and alerting mechanisms to detect unusual traffic patterns targeting this specific script, as well as establish rate limiting policies to prevent abuse of the system resources. Organizations should also consider implementing network segmentation and firewall rules to further restrict access to administrative scripts and reduce the attack surface available to local users. The vulnerability highlights the importance of proper application security design and the necessity of implementing robust access controls even for internal administrative tools.