CVE-2002-2390 in Trillian
Summary
by MITRE
Buffer overflow in the IDENT daemon (identd) in Trillian 0.6351, 0.725, 0.73, 0.74 and 1.0 pro allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) and possibly execute arbitrary code via a long request.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 07/14/2024
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2002-2390 represents a critical buffer overflow flaw within the IDENT daemon component of Trillian messaging software versions 0.6351, 0.725, 0.73, 0.74, and 1.0 pro. This daemon operates on port 113 and serves as a service that identifies the user associated with a particular TCP connection, commonly used in network authentication and logging contexts. The buffer overflow occurs when the daemon processes incoming requests without proper input validation, specifically when handling excessively long requests that exceed the allocated buffer space. This vulnerability falls under CWE-121, which describes heap-based buffer overflow conditions, and aligns with ATT&CK technique T1203 for legitimate program execution. The flaw exists in the daemon's request handling mechanism where it fails to validate the length of incoming data before copying it into fixed-size buffers, creating an exploitable condition.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple denial of service to potentially enabling remote code execution, making it particularly dangerous for systems where the IDENT daemon is running with elevated privileges. When a remote attacker sends a malformed request containing excessive data, the daemon's buffer overflow can cause the service to crash and terminate unexpectedly, resulting in a denial of service condition that disrupts legitimate user access to the messaging service. More critically, if the overflow is carefully crafted, it may allow an attacker to overwrite adjacent memory locations and potentially inject and execute malicious code within the context of the running daemon process. This represents a significant threat to system integrity and can provide attackers with unauthorized access to network resources that rely on the IDENT service for authentication purposes.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2002-2390 should prioritize immediate patching of affected Trillian versions to address the buffer overflow vulnerability in the IDENT daemon implementation. Network administrators should implement firewall rules to restrict access to port 113 from untrusted networks, effectively preventing remote exploitation attempts while maintaining local functionality for legitimate use cases. Additionally, system hardening measures including address space layout randomization and stack canaries should be enabled to complicate exploitation attempts. The vulnerability demonstrates the importance of input validation and proper memory management in network services, aligning with security best practices outlined in NIST SP 800-160 and ISO/IEC 27001 standards for secure system development. Organizations should also implement monitoring solutions to detect anomalous patterns in IDENT daemon activity that might indicate exploitation attempts, while conducting regular vulnerability assessments to identify similar buffer overflow conditions in other network services and applications.