CVE-2002-0896 in Swatch
Summary
by MITRE
The throttle capability in Swatch may fail to report certain events if (1) the same type of event occurs after the throttle period, or (2) when multiple events matching the same "watchfor" expression do not occur after the throttle period, which could allow attackers to avoid detection.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 06/26/2024
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2002-0896 resides within the Swatch monitoring system's throttle mechanism, which is designed to control the frequency of event reporting to prevent overwhelming log systems with duplicate or excessive notifications. This flaw represents a significant weakness in the system's event handling logic that directly impacts security monitoring capabilities. The throttle functionality is intended to suppress repeated events of the same type during a specified time window, but the implementation contains a critical design flaw that can result in event suppression beyond the intended scope.
The technical implementation error occurs when the throttle mechanism fails to properly reset its state conditions under specific circumstances. When the same type of event occurs after the throttle period has expired, the system does not correctly recognize that the previous suppression period has ended, leading to potential event suppression even when it should have been cleared. Additionally, when multiple events matching the same "watchfor" expression fail to occur after the throttle period, the system's state management becomes inconsistent, creating a scenario where legitimate security events may be silently suppressed or filtered out from reporting. This behavior violates fundamental principles of security monitoring systems where all relevant events must be reported to maintain effective threat detection and response capabilities.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple event reporting failures to create substantial security gaps in monitoring environments. Attackers can exploit this weakness by crafting attack patterns that intentionally trigger the throttle mechanism and then avoid detection by ensuring that subsequent events do not occur in the expected sequence or timing. This allows malicious activities to bypass security monitoring systems without generating alerts, effectively creating a stealthy attack vector that can remain undetected for extended periods. The vulnerability directly contradicts security monitoring best practices as outlined in the OWASP Top 10 and NIST cybersecurity frameworks, where comprehensive logging and alerting are critical requirements for effective incident detection and response.
From a threat modeling perspective, this vulnerability maps to several ATT&CK techniques including T1070.004 (Indicator Removal on Host) and T1562.001 (Impair Defenses). The flaw enables adversaries to manipulate the timing and occurrence of events to avoid detection rather than simply hiding malicious activity. The vulnerability also aligns with CWE-284 (Improper Access Control) and CWE-362 (Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization) as it involves improper state management and race conditions in event handling. Organizations using Swatch systems may experience false negatives in their security monitoring, where actual security incidents are not reported due to the throttle mechanism's failure to properly handle event sequences. The impact is particularly severe in environments where security monitoring is critical, such as financial institutions, government agencies, or any organization with strict compliance requirements for security event logging and reporting.
Mitigation strategies should focus on implementing proper state management for throttle mechanisms, including comprehensive testing of event handling under various timing scenarios and ensuring that throttle periods are properly reset regardless of subsequent event patterns. Organizations should consider implementing additional monitoring layers to detect when throttle mechanisms are failing to report events as expected. The solution requires thorough code review and modification of the throttle implementation to ensure that event suppression logic properly accounts for all possible event sequences and timing conditions, preventing the scenario where legitimate events are suppressed due to flawed state management. Regular security testing and validation of monitoring systems should be implemented to verify that throttle mechanisms function correctly under all operational conditions and that no security events are being filtered out due to implementation flaws.