CVE-2005-2143 in FrontPage
Summary
by MITRE
Microsoft Front Page allows attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via a crafted style tag in a web page.
Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.
Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 07/25/2017
Microsoft Front Page suffered from a vulnerability that enabled remote attackers to induce a denial of service condition through the exploitation of malformed style tags within web pages. This vulnerability specifically affected the rendering engine of Front Page when processing certain HTML elements, particularly those containing improperly structured or maliciously crafted style attributes. The flaw manifested when the application attempted to parse and display web content that contained crafted style tags designed to trigger memory corruption or resource exhaustion conditions within the Front Page application. The vulnerability was categorized under CWE-121 as a buffer overflow condition that occurred during the processing of untrusted input data. This weakness allowed attackers to craft malicious web pages containing specially formatted style attributes that would cause Front Page to crash or become unresponsive when attempting to render the content. The impact of this vulnerability extended beyond simple application instability as it could be leveraged to disrupt legitimate web publishing operations and potentially create denial of service conditions for users relying on Front Page for website management. The vulnerability was particularly concerning because Front Page was widely used for web development and content management, making the potential attack surface substantial. Attackers could exploit this weakness by creating web pages with malformed style tags that would trigger the application crash when opened or previewed within Front Page. This type of vulnerability aligns with ATT&CK technique T1499.004 which involves network denial of service attacks through exploitation of application vulnerabilities. The vulnerability could be exploited through various attack vectors including web browsing, email attachments, or malicious websites that would cause Front Page to crash when processing the content. The technical implementation of the flaw involved the application's failure to properly validate and sanitize style attribute data during the parsing process, leading to memory corruption conditions that resulted in application termination. Organizations using Front Page were particularly vulnerable since the application was often deployed in environments where users had little control over the content being processed, creating a high-risk scenario for legitimate business operations. The vulnerability demonstrated a classic example of insufficient input validation where the application trusted user-provided data without proper sanitization or bounds checking. This weakness could be addressed through proper input validation mechanisms and memory safety improvements in the application's parsing routines. The exploitation of this vulnerability required minimal technical skill and could be automated, making it particularly dangerous for widespread deployment. Security researchers noted that the vulnerability was part of a broader class of issues affecting web rendering engines and content processors, highlighting the importance of robust input validation and memory safety practices in application development. The impact on enterprise environments was significant as Front Page was commonly used in corporate web publishing workflows, making the potential for business disruption considerable. Organizations needed to implement immediate mitigations including disabling Front Page functionality, applying patches when available, or implementing network-based controls to prevent access to potentially malicious content. The vulnerability also underscored the importance of keeping web development tools updated and the necessity of implementing security controls that could detect and prevent the exploitation of similar rendering engine flaws in other applications. This particular weakness highlighted the critical nature of validating all user-supplied data and the potential for seemingly benign features like style tag processing to become attack vectors in complex application environments. The vulnerability served as a reminder of the importance of defensive programming practices and the need for comprehensive security testing of all input processing components within web applications and content management systems.