CVE-2002-0349 in Personal Firewall
Summary
by MITRE
Tiny Personal Firewall (TPF) 2.0.15, under certain configurations, will pop up an alert to the system even when the screen is locked, which could allow an attacker with physical access to the machine to hide activities or bypass access restrictions.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 09/19/2025
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2002-0349 affects Tiny Personal Firewall version 2.0.15, a network security application designed to monitor and control network traffic on personal computers. This flaw represents a critical security oversight in the application's configuration management, specifically concerning how it handles alert notifications when the system enters a locked state. The vulnerability stems from the software's failure to properly respect the system's screen lock status when generating security alerts, creating an unexpected behavior that undermines the intended security posture of the firewall application.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability lies in the application's notification subsystem which does not adequately check the system's current state before displaying alerts. When a user locks their screen, the operating system typically transitions to a secure state where unauthorized access attempts or suspicious activities should be more carefully monitored. However, TPF 2.0.15 continues to display its alert windows even when the screen is locked, potentially revealing information about network activity or security events to anyone physically present at the machine. This behavior creates an information disclosure risk and undermines the fundamental security principle that locked systems should maintain heightened security awareness.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability significantly increases the attack surface for physical access threats. An attacker with physical access to a machine running TPF 2.0.15 could exploit this weakness by observing the alert windows that appear during screen lock states, potentially gaining insights into network traffic patterns, security events, or system vulnerabilities. The flaw essentially provides a covert channel through which malicious actors could gather intelligence about the system's security posture without requiring any network-based attack vectors. This represents a particular concern in environments where physical security controls are paramount, such as corporate offices, government facilities, or any location where unauthorized physical access could result in significant security breaches.
The vulnerability aligns with several cybersecurity frameworks and threat modeling approaches, particularly relating to CWE-200 (Information Exposure) and CWE-284 (Improper Access Control). From an ATT&CK framework perspective, this weakness maps to techniques involving privilege escalation and credential access through physical means, as it enables adversaries to gather information that could facilitate more sophisticated attacks. The flaw also demonstrates poor adherence to security by design principles, where the application fails to respect the security context of the system it operates within. Organizations implementing TPF 2.0.15 should consider immediate mitigation through configuration changes that disable alert notifications during screen lock states, though the most effective solution involves upgrading to a patched version of the software. System administrators should also implement additional monitoring to detect unusual network activity patterns that might indicate exploitation attempts, as the vulnerability creates opportunities for information leakage that could be leveraged in combination with other attack vectors.