CVE-2004-1525 in Hired Team Trial
Summary
by MITRE
Hired Team: Trial 2.0 and earlier and 2.200 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (application crash) via the status command.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 07/15/2017
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2004-1525 affects Hired Team Trial versions 2.0 and earlier, as well as version 2.200, presenting a significant security flaw that enables remote attackers to execute denial of service attacks against affected systems. This vulnerability specifically targets the status command functionality within the software, demonstrating a critical weakness in input validation and error handling mechanisms. The flaw allows malicious actors to craft specially formatted status commands that trigger application crashes, effectively rendering the service unavailable to legitimate users and disrupting normal operations.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from inadequate validation of user-supplied input parameters within the status command processing logic. When the application receives a malformed or specially crafted status command, it fails to properly sanitize or validate the input before processing, leading to memory corruption or unexpected behavior that ultimately results in application termination. This type of vulnerability falls under the CWE-121 category of stack-based buffer overflow or more broadly represents a command injection or improper input handling flaw. The vulnerability's remote exploitability means that attackers do not require local system access or authentication credentials to initiate the attack, making it particularly dangerous in networked environments where the service may be exposed to untrusted networks.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple service disruption, as it can be leveraged by attackers to create persistent availability issues that affect business continuity and user productivity. When the application crashes repeatedly due to malicious status commands, legitimate users lose access to critical functionality, potentially leading to financial losses, service degradation, and damage to organizational reputation. The vulnerability also represents a potential entry point for more sophisticated attacks, as the application crash may provide opportunities for information disclosure or privilege escalation if the underlying system is not properly secured. Organizations running affected versions of Hired Team Trial may experience increased incident response costs and system downtime while implementing temporary workarounds or applying patches.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2004-1525 should prioritize immediate patching of affected systems with the vendor-provided security updates, as this represents the most effective long-term solution to address the root cause of the vulnerability. Network administrators should also implement input validation controls at network boundaries, such as firewalls or intrusion prevention systems, to filter out suspicious status command requests before they reach the vulnerable application. Additionally, system hardening measures including disabling unnecessary network services, implementing least privilege access controls, and monitoring for unusual status command patterns can help reduce the attack surface and detect potential exploitation attempts. The vulnerability's classification aligns with ATT&CK technique T1499.004 for network denial of service, highlighting the need for comprehensive network security controls that address both the immediate threat and broader attack surface considerations. Organizations should also consider implementing application-level monitoring to detect and alert on abnormal application behavior that may indicate exploitation attempts.