CVE-2005-0009 in Ethereal
Summary
by MITRE
Unknown vulnerability in the Gnutella dissector in Ethereal 0.10.6 through 0.10.8 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (application crash).
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 07/06/2018
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2005-0009 represents a critical denial of service flaw within the Gnutella dissector component of Ethereal network protocol analyzer version 0.10.6 through 0.10.8. This issue stems from improper handling of malformed network packets during protocol analysis, specifically affecting the Gnutella file sharing protocol parsing functionality. The vulnerability exists in the packet dissection logic where the application fails to properly validate input data structures before attempting to process Gnutella protocol elements. When a remote attacker crafts malicious network traffic containing specially formatted Gnutella protocol data, the dissector encounters unexpected data patterns that trigger memory corruption or invalid pointer dereferences within the application's parsing routines.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability demonstrates a classic buffer over-read condition combined with improper input validation mechanisms. The Gnutella dissector in Ethereal processes network packets by examining specific protocol fields and constructing internal data structures for display in the application's user interface. When encountering malformed Gnutella packets, particularly those with unexpected field lengths or invalid data sequences, the dissector's parsing logic fails to properly bounds-check array accesses or validate field sizes. This weakness directly maps to CWE-129, which describes improper validation of array index values, and CWE-125, which addresses out-of-bounds read conditions. The flaw essentially allows an attacker to manipulate the application's memory management during packet analysis, causing the program to crash when it attempts to process the malformed data structure.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple application instability, as it enables remote attackers to systematically disrupt network monitoring operations. Network administrators who rely on Ethereal for traffic analysis and troubleshooting could find their monitoring tools becoming unresponsive or crashing when processing legitimate network traffic containing malicious Gnutella protocol data. This denial of service condition affects the availability of network analysis capabilities, potentially preventing security personnel from identifying other legitimate security threats or network anomalies during the time when the application is crashed. The vulnerability particularly impacts environments where network monitoring is critical, such as security operations centers or network infrastructure management systems where continuous traffic analysis is required.
Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability focus on immediate software updates and network traffic filtering approaches. The primary recommended solution involves upgrading to Ethereal version 0.10.9 or later, which includes patched dissector logic that properly validates input data before processing. Organizations should also implement network segmentation and filtering rules to prevent potentially malicious Gnutella protocol traffic from reaching systems running Ethereal. Additionally, network administrators should consider implementing intrusion detection systems with signature-based detection for known Gnutella protocol anomalies that could indicate exploitation attempts. The vulnerability aligns with ATT&CK technique T1498, which describes denial of service attacks, and demonstrates how protocol analysis tools can themselves become targets for exploitation when not properly hardened against malformed input data. Security teams should also consider implementing application-level sandboxing or virtualization for protocol analysis tools to limit the impact of potential exploitation attempts.