CVE-2002-0302 in Enterprise Firewall
Summary
by MITRE
The Notify daemon for Symantec Enterprise Firewall (SEF) 6.5.x drops large alerts when SNMP is used as the transport, which could prevent some alerts from being sent in the event of an attack.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 07/11/2014
The Notify daemon in Symantec Enterprise Firewall version 6.5.x presents a critical reliability flaw when utilizing SNMP as the transport mechanism for alert notifications. This vulnerability stems from the daemon's inability to properly handle large alert payloads, resulting in partial or complete loss of security notifications during incident response scenarios. The issue specifically manifests when SNMP transport is configured, creating a significant gap in security monitoring capabilities where critical attack information may never reach designated recipients.
The technical root cause of this vulnerability lies in the daemon's insufficient buffer management and packet handling mechanisms when processing alert data exceeding predetermined size thresholds. SNMP protocol implementations typically have defined message size limitations that when exceeded can cause transmission failures or data corruption. In this case, the Notify daemon fails to properly fragment or handle large alert messages, leading to dropped notifications that could contain vital information about network intrusions or security breaches. This represents a fundamental flaw in the daemon's network communication stack and message processing logic.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple notification failures, creating substantial gaps in security incident response capabilities. During active attacks, organizations relying on Symantec Enterprise Firewall may experience complete loss of critical alert information, potentially allowing malicious activities to go undetected for extended periods. The vulnerability particularly affects environments where security events generate large alert payloads, such as those involving detailed packet captures, extensive log data, or comprehensive threat intelligence reports. This failure in alert delivery creates a false sense of security while actual security incidents may be silently ignored.
Organizations affected by this vulnerability should implement immediate mitigations including reducing alert payload sizes, implementing alternative notification mechanisms, and establishing redundant alerting systems. The issue aligns with CWE-129, which addresses insufficient input validation in network protocols, and represents a failure in proper resource management within network security applications. From an ATT&CK framework perspective, this vulnerability enables adversaries to potentially evade detection by exploiting the alerting system's failure, potentially increasing their operational time undetected. Network administrators should consider implementing monitoring solutions that can detect alert delivery failures and establish independent verification mechanisms for security events. The vulnerability underscores the importance of proper buffer management and input validation in security applications, particularly those handling critical network monitoring functions.