CVE-2004-1218 in Remote Execute
Summary
by MITRE
Remote Execute 2.30 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (application crash) by making 7 simultaneous connections.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 11/21/2024
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2004-1218 represents a denial of service flaw affecting Remote Execute 2.30 software. This vulnerability demonstrates a critical weakness in the application's connection handling mechanism that can be exploited by remote attackers to disrupt service availability. The flaw specifically manifests when an attacker establishes seven simultaneous connections to the vulnerable system, triggering an application crash that results in complete service disruption. This type of vulnerability falls under the category of resource exhaustion attacks where the attacker leverages the application's inadequate handling of concurrent connections to compromise system availability.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from insufficient input validation and connection management within the Remote Execute 2.30 application. When seven concurrent connections are established, the system fails to properly manage these simultaneous requests, leading to a buffer overflow or memory corruption condition that causes the application to crash. This behavior aligns with CWE-129, which addresses improper handling of insufficient resources, and CWE-131, which covers improper handling of length parameters. The vulnerability represents a classic example of a resource exhaustion attack pattern where the attacker exploits the application's limited capacity to handle concurrent connections, demonstrating poor defensive programming practices and inadequate error handling mechanisms.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple service disruption, as it can be leveraged by malicious actors to perform sustained denial of service attacks against targeted systems. The relatively low threshold of seven simultaneous connections makes this vulnerability particularly dangerous as it requires minimal resources to exploit and can be executed by attackers with basic network access. Organizations utilizing Remote Execute 2.30 software face significant risk of service interruption, potentially affecting critical business operations and user access. The vulnerability also demonstrates the importance of implementing proper connection limiting and resource management controls within network services to prevent exploitation.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2004-1218 should focus on implementing connection rate limiting and proper resource management within the application. System administrators should deploy firewall rules to limit the number of concurrent connections to the vulnerable service and implement connection tracking mechanisms to detect and block suspicious connection patterns. The implementation of proper input validation and connection handling routines can prevent the application from crashing under concurrent connection loads. Organizations should also consider upgrading to patched versions of Remote Execute 2.30 or migrating to more secure alternatives. This vulnerability aligns with ATT&CK technique T1499 which covers network denial of service attacks, and organizations should include this threat in their threat modeling and incident response planning to ensure comprehensive protection against such exploitation patterns.