CVE-2004-2078 in Red-Alert
Summary
by MITRE
Red-M Red-Alert 2.7.5 with software 3.1 build 24 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (reboot and loss of logged events) via a long request to TCP port 80, possibly triggering a buffer overflow.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/09/2024
The vulnerability described in CVE-2004-2078 represents a critical security flaw in Red-M Red-Alert 2.7.5 software version 3.1 build 24, which is a network security monitoring and alerting system designed to detect and respond to network intrusions. This particular vulnerability manifests as a remote denial of service condition that can be exploited by attackers who send specially crafted long requests to the system's TCP port 80, which typically serves HTTP traffic. The flaw occurs within the software's handling of incoming network requests, specifically when processing HTTP protocol communications, making it particularly dangerous as it can be triggered remotely without requiring local system access or authentication.
The technical mechanism underlying this vulnerability involves a buffer overflow condition that occurs when the Red-M Red-Alert system receives HTTP requests containing excessively long data payloads. When the software processes these malformed requests, it fails to properly validate the length of incoming data before attempting to store or process it within fixed-size memory buffers. This classic buffer overflow vulnerability, classified as CWE-121 in the Common Weakness Enumeration catalog, allows attackers to overwrite adjacent memory locations, potentially causing the application to crash, restart, or behave unpredictably. The specific nature of the overflow in this case appears to be related to how the system handles HTTP request parsing and response generation, particularly when dealing with oversized input data that exceeds the allocated buffer space.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is severe and multifaceted, affecting both system availability and security monitoring capabilities. When exploited successfully, the vulnerability causes the Red-M Red-Alert system to reboot automatically, which results in immediate loss of all logged security events and monitoring data that may have been collected during the period leading up to the attack. This disruption of service creates a significant gap in network security monitoring, as the system becomes temporarily unavailable to detect and alert on ongoing or future security incidents. The denial of service condition effectively neutralizes the security solution's primary function, leaving networks exposed to threats that would otherwise be detected by the monitoring system, making this vulnerability particularly dangerous in production environments where continuous security monitoring is essential for maintaining network integrity and compliance with security standards.
The exploitation of this vulnerability aligns with several tactics described in the MITRE ATT&CK framework, particularly those related to denial of service attacks and system exploitation techniques. Attackers can leverage this flaw to perform network disruption attacks that compromise the availability of critical security infrastructure, which represents a significant threat to overall security posture. Organizations using Red-M Red-Alert systems in their security architecture face substantial risk from this vulnerability, as it can be exploited by remote attackers with minimal technical expertise to disrupt security monitoring operations. The vulnerability demonstrates the importance of input validation and proper buffer management in security-critical applications, highlighting the need for regular security updates and patches to address known vulnerabilities in network monitoring systems.
Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability should include immediate implementation of security patches provided by Red-M or the software vendor, as well as network-level protections such as firewall rules that limit access to TCP port 80 from untrusted networks. Organizations should also implement network segmentation to isolate security monitoring systems from general network traffic and establish robust monitoring procedures to detect unusual system behavior that might indicate exploitation attempts. Additionally, regular security assessments and vulnerability scanning should be conducted to identify similar flaws in other network security tools and applications, as buffer overflow vulnerabilities remain a common class of security flaws that require careful attention to proper input validation and memory management practices. The vulnerability underscores the critical importance of maintaining up-to-date security software and implementing defense-in-depth strategies to protect against both known and emerging threats to network security infrastructure.