CVE-2002-1485 in Trillian
Summary
by MITRE
The AIM component of Trillian 0.73 and 0.74 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via certain strings such as "P > O < C".
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 06/28/2021
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2002-1485 represents a classic buffer overflow condition within the AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) protocol implementation of Trillian client versions 0.73 and 0.74. This flaw manifests as a remote denial of service attack that can be triggered by sending specifically crafted strings to the affected application. The particular string "P > O < C" serves as a triggering mechanism that causes the Trillian application to crash and terminate unexpectedly. This vulnerability falls under the broader category of software quality and security flaws that can lead to system instability and availability issues.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from inadequate input validation within the AIM protocol handler component of the Trillian client. When the application receives the malformed string containing special characters and operators, it fails to properly sanitize or validate the input before processing it through the messaging system. This lack of proper input validation creates an exploitable condition where the application's memory management routines become corrupted, leading to an unhandled exception that terminates the process. The vulnerability demonstrates poor defensive programming practices and highlights the critical importance of implementing robust input sanitization mechanisms in networked applications.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability presents significant risks to users who rely on Trillian for instant messaging communications. The remote exploitation capability means that attackers can potentially disrupt communications without requiring local access to the target system, making it particularly dangerous in enterprise environments where instant messaging clients are widely deployed. The denial of service impact extends beyond simple application crashes, as it can disrupt business communications and potentially be used as part of larger attack campaigns. This vulnerability aligns with ATT&CK technique T1499.004 for network denial of service and CWE-121 for stack-based buffer overflow conditions.
The remediation approach for this vulnerability requires immediate patching of the Trillian client to version 0.75 or later, which includes proper input validation and sanitization routines. Organizations should implement network monitoring to detect and block malicious traffic patterns that may attempt to exploit this vulnerability. Additionally, system administrators should consider implementing application whitelisting policies that restrict execution of unpatched versions of Trillian. The vulnerability also underscores the necessity of regular security updates and the importance of maintaining current software versions to protect against known exploits. Security teams should conduct vulnerability assessments to identify other instances of similar input validation flaws within their messaging infrastructure. This vulnerability serves as a reminder of how seemingly simple input handling issues can result in significant system availability problems and emphasizes the need for comprehensive security testing throughout the software development lifecycle.