CVE-2002-2306 in Kazaa Media Desktop
Summary
by MITRE
Sharman Networks KaZaA Media Desktop 1.7.1 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (CPU consumption) by sending several large messages.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 08/28/2025
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2002-2306 affects Sharman Networks KaZaA Media Desktop version 1.7.1, representing a significant denial of service weakness that can be exploited remotely. This flaw specifically targets the application's message handling mechanism, where the software fails to properly validate or process large incoming data payloads. The vulnerability stems from inadequate input sanitization and resource management within the KaZaA client software, which was widely used for peer-to-peer file sharing during the early 2000s. Attackers can exploit this weakness by crafting and transmitting several large messages to the vulnerable application, causing it to consume excessive cpu resources and ultimately leading to system instability or complete service unavailability.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability demonstrates poor defensive programming practices that align with CWE-400, which covers unchecked resource consumption in software systems. The KaZaA client does not implement proper bounds checking or resource limiting mechanisms when processing incoming messages, allowing malicious actors to flood the application with oversized data packets. This weakness creates a scenario where the application's processing loop becomes overwhelmed with large message handling operations, leading to sustained high cpu utilization that can render the system unresponsive or cause the application to crash entirely. The vulnerability exists at the protocol level within the application's network communication stack, where message parsing and validation routines fail to account for abnormal data sizes.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability poses substantial risk to users who rely on KaZaA for file sharing activities, particularly in environments where network access is not properly secured or filtered. The remote exploitation capability means that attackers can target vulnerable systems from anywhere on the internet without requiring physical access or local credentials. The impact extends beyond simple service disruption, as the high cpu consumption can affect overall system performance, potentially causing other applications to become unresponsive or leading to complete system freezes. This type of vulnerability was particularly concerning in the early peer-to-peer ecosystem where users often ran these applications continuously on their desktop systems, making them attractive targets for malicious actors seeking to disrupt network operations or cause system instability.
The exploitation of this vulnerability can be categorized under the ATT&CK framework's T1499 technique for network denial of service attacks, specifically targeting the availability component of the CIA triad. Security practitioners should note that this vulnerability represents an early example of how peer-to-peer applications could be targeted through message manipulation attacks, highlighting the importance of input validation and resource management in distributed systems. Organizations should implement network segmentation and firewall rules to limit access to peer-to-peer applications, while also ensuring that vulnerable versions of KaZaA are not running on critical systems. Regular patch management and application updates remain essential defensive measures, though in this case the vulnerability existed in a legacy version that may not have received subsequent security updates, demonstrating the importance of maintaining current software versions and the risks associated with using outdated peer-to-peer applications.