CVE-2004-2344 in VGW480 Telephony Gateway
Summary
by MITRE
Unknown vulnerability in the ASN.1/H.323/H.225 stack of VocalTec VGW120 and VGW480 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/09/2024
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2004-2344 represents a critical flaw within the ASN.1/H.323/H.225 protocol stack implementation found in VocalTec VGW120 and VGW480 gateway devices. These telecommunications appliances serve as gateways for voice and video communications, operating within the H.323 framework that governs multimedia communication over packet networks. The affected devices utilize ASN.1 encoding standards for message structure and H.225 signaling protocols for call control and setup procedures. This vulnerability specifically targets the processing of malformed or specially crafted ASN.1 encoded messages within the H.323/H.225 stack, creating a potential attack surface that remote adversaries can exploit without requiring authentication or privileged access.
The technical implementation flaw occurs during the parsing and validation of ASN.1 encoded data structures within the H.323 signaling process. When the VocalTec gateway receives specially crafted malformed packets containing improperly formatted ASN.1 elements, the device's protocol stack fails to properly handle these anomalies, leading to system instability and subsequent service disruption. The vulnerability manifests as a buffer overflow condition or improper memory management during ASN.1 decoding operations, causing the gateway to crash or become unresponsive. This type of flaw aligns with CWE-121, which describes heap-based buffer overflow conditions, and CWE-125, addressing out-of-bounds read vulnerabilities that can occur during data parsing operations.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple service interruption, as it can result in complete denial of service for voice and video communication services within networks utilizing these gateways. Attackers can remotely trigger the vulnerability by sending malicious signaling messages that exploit the ASN.1 parsing flaw, causing the affected devices to crash and require manual intervention or reboot to restore functionality. This disruption affects enterprise communication systems, potentially impacting business continuity and customer service operations. The vulnerability's remote exploitability means that attackers can target these devices from outside the local network, making it particularly dangerous for organizations with exposed gateway configurations. According to ATT&CK framework, this represents a denial of service attack pattern under the T1499 category, specifically targeting network infrastructure components to disrupt availability.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2004-2344 require immediate attention from network administrators and security teams responsible for maintaining VocalTec gateway infrastructure. The most effective approach involves applying vendor-provided firmware updates or patches that address the ASN.1 parsing vulnerability within the H.323/H.225 stack implementation. Network segmentation and access control measures should be implemented to limit exposure of these devices to untrusted networks, while monitoring systems should be configured to detect unusual signaling traffic patterns that might indicate exploitation attempts. Additionally, organizations should consider implementing network intrusion detection systems capable of identifying malformed H.323 signaling messages and blocking suspicious traffic flows. The vulnerability highlights the importance of robust input validation and proper error handling in telecommunications protocol implementations, emphasizing that legacy systems require ongoing security maintenance to address evolving threat landscapes.