CVE-2004-0403 in Racoon
Summary
by MITRE
Racoon before 20040408a allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (memory consumption) via an ISAKMP packet with a large length field.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 06/07/2019
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2004-0403 affects the Racoon IPsec key management daemon version prior to 20040408a, representing a significant denial of service weakness in network security infrastructure. This flaw specifically targets the Internet Security Association and Key Management Protocol implementation within the racoon service, which is commonly deployed in Unix-like operating systems to manage security associations and key exchange processes for ipsec connections. The vulnerability stems from inadequate input validation mechanisms within the ISAKMP packet processing logic, where the daemon fails to properly sanitize or limit the length field values contained within incoming packets.
The technical exploitation of this vulnerability occurs when a remote attacker crafts and transmits an ISAKMP packet containing an excessively large length field value. When the racoon daemon processes this malformed packet, it attempts to allocate memory resources proportional to the inflated length value specified in the packet header. This memory allocation behavior creates a resource exhaustion condition where the daemon consumes increasingly large amounts of system memory until the system becomes unresponsive or crashes entirely. The flaw demonstrates characteristics of a classic memory exhaustion attack pattern where malformed input data triggers unbounded memory allocation operations without proper bounds checking.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple service disruption to potentially compromise entire network security infrastructures that rely on racoon for ipsec key management. Network administrators responsible for maintaining secure communications channels may find their systems rendered unavailable during attacks, leading to denial of service for legitimate users and potential security breaches. The vulnerability particularly affects systems where racoon is configured to accept incoming ISAKMP connections from untrusted networks, making it a critical concern for organizations with exposed ipsec gateways or routers. Attackers can leverage this weakness to perform sustained denial of service attacks against ipsec services, potentially causing cascading failures in network connectivity and security operations.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2004-0403 primarily focus on applying the vendor-supplied patch released on April 8, 2004, which addresses the memory allocation bounds checking issue in the racoon daemon. System administrators should immediately update their racoon implementations to version 20040408a or later to eliminate the vulnerability. Network segmentation and firewall rules can provide temporary protection by limiting access to ipsec services to trusted sources only, while monitoring systems should be deployed to detect unusual memory consumption patterns that may indicate exploitation attempts. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-129, which describes improper validation of length fields, and represents a specific instance of the broader category of buffer overflows and memory exhaustion attacks that fall under ATT&CK technique T1499.1 for network denial of service attacks. Organizations should also consider implementing intrusion detection systems that can identify and block malformed ISAKMP packets with suspiciously large length fields to prevent exploitation of this and similar vulnerabilities in their network infrastructure.