CVE-2005-0010 in Ethereal
Summary
by MITRE
Unknown vulnerability in the MMSE dissector in Ethereal 0.10.4 through 0.10.8 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service by triggering a free of statically allocated memory.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 07/06/2018
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2005-0010 represents a critical memory management flaw within the MMSE dissector component of Ethereal network protocol analyzer version 0.10.4 through 0.10.8. This issue stems from improper handling of memory allocation patterns where the dissector attempts to free memory that was statically allocated rather than dynamically allocated, creating a fundamental flaw in the software's memory management architecture. The MMSE dissector is responsible for parsing Multimedia Messaging Service elements within network traffic, making it a critical component for analyzing mobile communication protocols. This vulnerability specifically targets the memory deallocation mechanism, where the software's protocol parsing logic incorrectly assumes that all allocated memory can be safely freed, regardless of its allocation method.
The operational impact of this vulnerability manifests as a remote denial of service condition that can be triggered by sending specially crafted network packets containing MMSE protocol data to a targeted Ethereal instance. When the vulnerable dissector processes such packets, it attempts to execute a free operation on statically allocated memory segments, which results in undefined behavior and typically causes the application to crash or terminate unexpectedly. This type of memory corruption vulnerability falls under CWE-415, which describes improper handling of memory allocation and deallocation operations, specifically addressing the scenario where a program attempts to free memory that was not allocated through malloc or similar dynamic allocation functions. The vulnerability's remote exploitability means that attackers can trigger the condition without requiring local access to the system, making it particularly dangerous in network monitoring environments where Ethereal instances may be processing untrusted network traffic from multiple sources.
The security implications extend beyond simple service disruption to potential system stability and availability concerns for network monitoring infrastructure. When Ethereal is deployed in production environments for network analysis, intrusion detection, or security auditing purposes, a remote denial of service attack can compromise the entire monitoring capability of an organization. The vulnerability demonstrates a classic memory safety issue that has been addressed through proper memory management practices and input validation. From an ATT&CK framework perspective, this vulnerability maps to the T1499.004 technique related to network denial of service attacks, where attackers leverage protocol parsing flaws to disrupt network monitoring systems. The flaw represents a fundamental lack of proper bounds checking and memory allocation validation within the protocol dissector architecture, emphasizing the critical need for robust memory safety practices in network analysis tools that must handle potentially malicious input from untrusted sources.
Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability involve immediate upgrading to Ethereal version 0.10.9 or later, where the memory management issue has been corrected through proper validation of memory allocation types before attempting deallocation operations. Organizations should also implement network segmentation and access controls to limit exposure of Ethereal instances to untrusted network traffic, while deploying intrusion detection systems to monitor for potential exploitation attempts. The fix implemented in subsequent versions demonstrates proper memory management practices that validate allocation methods before deallocation, preventing the erroneous free operations that caused the vulnerability. Security practitioners should also consider implementing network monitoring solutions that can detect and alert on unusual traffic patterns that might indicate exploitation attempts, as the vulnerability's remote nature makes it difficult to detect through traditional network monitoring approaches alone.