CVE-2005-2431 in GForge
Summary
by MITRE
The (1) lost password and (2) account pending features in GForge 4.5 do not properly set a limit on the number of e-mails sent to an e-mail address, which allows remote attackers to send a large number of messages to arbitrary e-mail addresses (aka mail bomb).
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 07/10/2018
The vulnerability described in CVE-2005-2431 affects GForge 4.5's account management system, specifically targeting the lost password and account pending features. This represents a classic denial of service scenario where malicious actors can exploit the lack of email rate limiting mechanisms to overwhelm target email systems. The flaw resides in the application's failure to implement proper bounds on email transmission frequency, creating an avenue for abuse that can be leveraged to disrupt legitimate email services. The vulnerability impacts both authentication recovery mechanisms and account activation workflows, making it particularly dangerous as it can affect user access to their accounts while simultaneously flooding email systems. This issue demonstrates a fundamental lack of input validation and resource management controls within the application's email handling logic.
The technical implementation flaw stems from the absence of rate limiting or throttling mechanisms in the email sending functionality. When users request password resets or account activation emails, the system processes these requests without enforcing any constraints on the number of messages that can be dispatched to a single email address within a given time period. This allows attackers to repeatedly trigger email generation functions, potentially flooding recipient mailboxes with thousands of messages. The vulnerability is classified as a lack of proper access control and resource management, aligning with CWE-770 which addresses insufficient resource management, and CWE-307 which covers inadequate protection against excessive resource consumption. The flaw essentially creates an open relay scenario for email generation, where the application becomes a vector for email flooding attacks rather than a secure authentication mechanism.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple email flooding, as it can be used to disrupt legitimate business operations and potentially facilitate more sophisticated attacks. Attackers can leverage this weakness to overwhelm email servers, consume bandwidth resources, and potentially cause legitimate users to miss important account notifications. The vulnerability affects the availability of email services for both the target organization and end users, creating a denial of service condition that can persist until the attacker ceases their activity or the system is manually reset. From an attacker perspective, this represents a low-cost, high-impact vector that can be executed remotely without requiring elevated privileges or specialized tools. The attack can be automated and sustained, making it particularly dangerous in environments where email systems are critical for business operations and user communication.
Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability must address both the immediate security flaw and broader system resilience requirements. The primary fix involves implementing robust rate limiting mechanisms that restrict the number of emails that can be sent to any single address within a defined time window, typically measured in minutes or hours. This approach aligns with ATT&CK technique T1498 which covers resource exhaustion attacks and emphasizes the importance of implementing rate limiting to prevent abuse of system resources. Organizations should also implement email queue management systems that can detect and flag unusual sending patterns, along with logging mechanisms that track email generation activities for security monitoring purposes. Additionally, the system should enforce account lockout mechanisms after a certain number of failed authentication attempts to prevent automated abuse of the password recovery features. Network-level protections such as email server rate limiting and spam filtering configurations should also be implemented to provide defense in depth against potential exploitation of this vulnerability.