CVE-2005-3247 in Ethereal
Summary
by MITRE
The SigComp UDVM in Ethereal 0.10.12 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (infinite loop) via unknown vectors.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 07/06/2021
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2005-3247 resides within the SigComp UDVM implementation found in Ethereal version 0.10.12, representing a critical security flaw that enables remote attackers to induce a denial of service condition through infinite loop exploitation. This issue specifically targets the User Datagram Protocol Compression (SigComp) functionality that Ethereal employed for analyzing network traffic. The SigComp UDVM serves as a virtual machine designed to execute compressed protocol data, but the implementation contained a flaw that could be manipulated to create indefinite looping scenarios.
The technical nature of this vulnerability stems from insufficient input validation and control flow management within the SigComp UDVM interpreter. When processing maliciously crafted compressed protocol data, the virtual machine could enter an infinite loop state where execution would continue indefinitely without proper termination conditions. This flaw operates at the protocol analysis layer where Ethereal processes network packets, making it particularly dangerous as it can be triggered through normal network traffic processing without requiring special privileges or authentication. The vulnerability represents a classic example of a resource exhaustion attack that can render the network analysis tool completely unresponsive.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple service disruption, as it fundamentally compromises the availability of network analysis capabilities within the affected system. When exploited, the infinite loop causes Ethereal to consume excessive CPU resources and become unresponsive to legitimate network traffic analysis tasks. This creates a scenario where network administrators lose the ability to monitor and analyze network protocols effectively, potentially masking other security issues or preventing timely detection of actual threats. The vulnerability affects any system running Ethereal 0.10.12 that processes network traffic containing malicious SigComp compressed data, making it particularly concerning for network monitoring environments where continuous analysis is critical.
Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability primarily involve immediate software updates to newer versions of Ethereal that contain patched implementations of the SigComp UDVM. Users should also implement network segmentation and traffic filtering to prevent potentially malicious compressed protocol data from reaching systems running vulnerable versions of the software. Additionally, network administrators should consider implementing monitoring solutions that can detect abnormal CPU utilization patterns that may indicate exploitation attempts. From a cybersecurity framework perspective, this vulnerability aligns with CWE-835, which addresses infinite loops or iterations in software implementations, and can be mapped to ATT&CK technique T1499.004 for network denial of service attacks. The incident underscores the importance of proper input validation and resource management in protocol analysis tools, particularly those handling compressed data formats that require virtual machine execution environments.