CVE-2004-1140 in Ethereal
Summary
by MITRE
Ethereal 0.9.0 through 0.10.7 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (application hang) and possibly fill available disk space via an invalid RTP timestamp.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 06/05/2019
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2004-1140 affects Ethereal network protocol analyzer versions 0.9.0 through 0.10.7, representing a significant denial of service weakness that could severely impact network monitoring operations. This issue stems from the application's inadequate handling of malformed real-time transport protocol packets, specifically those containing invalid timestamp values that the software fails to properly validate or reject. The flaw exists within the packet parsing mechanism where Ethereal processes RTP streams without sufficient input sanitization, creating an exploitable condition that adversaries can leverage to disrupt normal operations.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability involves the manipulation of RTP timestamp fields in network packets that Ethereal attempts to analyze and display. When the application encounters an RTP packet with an invalid or malformed timestamp value, it enters an infinite loop or becomes unresponsive during packet processing, causing the application to hang and become unavailable for legitimate network analysis tasks. This behavior represents a classic example of insufficient input validation, which maps to CWE-20 - Improper Input Validation, where the software fails to properly validate the structure and content of incoming data before processing it.
The operational impact of CVE-2004-1140 extends beyond simple application unresponsiveness to potentially consume significant system resources and disk space. Attackers can exploit this vulnerability by crafting malicious RTP packets that cause Ethereal to continuously process malformed data, leading to resource exhaustion that may fill available disk space with log entries or temporary files. This type of resource exhaustion attack aligns with ATT&CK technique T1499.004 - Endpoint Denial of Service, where adversaries target application stability to disrupt normal operations. The vulnerability particularly affects network security operations centers that rely on continuous monitoring, as the denial of service can occur without detection and may go unnoticed until system resources are completely consumed.
Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability require immediate patching of Ethereal installations to versions that properly validate RTP timestamp values and implement robust error handling for malformed packets. System administrators should also implement network segmentation and filtering to prevent unauthorized access to systems running Ethereal, while monitoring for unusual packet patterns that might indicate exploitation attempts. The fix typically involves adding proper bounds checking for timestamp values and implementing timeout mechanisms to prevent indefinite processing of malformed data. Organizations should also consider implementing intrusion detection systems that can detect and alert on anomalous RTP packet patterns, as this vulnerability demonstrates the importance of input validation in network security tools that process untrusted data from network traffic.