CVE-2006-1648 in SynchronEyes
Summary
by MITRE
SMART SynchronEyes Student and Teacher 6.0, and possibly earlier versions, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (memory consumption) via a certain packet to the Teacher discovery port that causes SynchronEyes to connect to the attacker s machine and read a value that is used as a parameter to malloc.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 07/22/2018
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2006-1648 affects SMART SynchronEyes Student and Teacher software version 6.0 and potentially earlier releases. This security flaw resides within the network discovery mechanism of the SynchronEyes Teacher application, specifically targeting the discovery port functionality that enables network communication between teacher and student devices. The vulnerability represents a classic example of a resource exhaustion attack that exploits improper input validation and memory management practices within the application's network handling code.
The technical exploitation of this vulnerability occurs through the crafting of a specific network packet that is sent to the Teacher discovery port. When the vulnerable SynchronEyes Teacher application receives this malformed packet, it attempts to establish a connection to the attacker's machine and subsequently reads a value that serves as a parameter for the malloc memory allocation function. This particular flaw demonstrates poor input sanitization and inadequate bounds checking, as the application fails to validate the size parameter before passing it to the memory allocation routine. The malicious packet structure causes the application to allocate an excessive amount of memory, leading to progressive memory consumption that eventually results in system instability and denial of service conditions.
From an operational impact perspective, this vulnerability creates significant disruption in educational environments where SynchronEyes is deployed for classroom management and student engagement activities. The denial of service condition effectively renders the Teacher application unusable, preventing instructors from managing their classroom sessions and accessing student devices. The vulnerability is particularly concerning because it requires no authentication or specialized privileges to exploit, making it accessible to any remote attacker who can reach the discovery port. This characteristic aligns with the ATT&CK framework's mitigation strategies for network-based attacks, as the vulnerability demonstrates a failure in network boundary protection and application input validation controls. The memory consumption aspect of the attack can also potentially cause system crashes or performance degradation that affects other applications running on the same network infrastructure.
The underlying technical flaw corresponds to CWE-122, which describes improper restriction of operations within a memory buffer, and CWE-770, which covers allocation of resources without limits or proper controls. These weaknesses indicate that the application lacks proper parameter validation and memory allocation bounds checking. The vulnerability can be mitigated through several approaches including implementing input validation on all network packets received on the discovery port, establishing proper bounds checking for memory allocation parameters, and applying network segmentation to restrict access to the Teacher discovery port. Additionally, network firewalls should be configured to limit access to the specific port to trusted network segments only, while regular software updates and patches should be deployed to address the root cause of the memory allocation vulnerability. Organizations should also consider implementing intrusion detection systems to monitor for anomalous network traffic patterns that may indicate exploitation attempts against this vulnerability.