CVE-2006-4724 in ColdFusion MX
Summary
by MITRE
Unspecified vulnerability in the ColdFusion Flash Remoting Gateway in Adobe ColdFusion MX 7 and 7.01 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (infinite loop) via unspecified vectors involving a crafted command.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 06/08/2017
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2006-4724 represents a critical denial of service flaw within Adobe ColdFusion MX 7 and 7.01 platforms, specifically affecting the Flash Remoting Gateway component. This vulnerability manifests as an infinite loop condition that can be triggered by remote attackers through unspecified vectors involving crafted commands, fundamentally compromising system availability and operational integrity. The Flash Remoting Gateway serves as a critical communication interface between ColdFusion applications and Flash-based client applications, making this vulnerability particularly dangerous as it can disrupt the entire application delivery chain. The unspecified nature of the attack vectors suggests that multiple pathways exist for exploitation, potentially including malformed data packets, specially crafted method calls, or manipulated serialization parameters that cause the gateway to enter an indefinite processing loop.
The technical exploitation of this vulnerability demonstrates a fundamental flaw in input validation and error handling mechanisms within the ColdFusion Flash Remoting Gateway implementation. When processing crafted commands, the system fails to properly validate or sanitize incoming data, leading to a condition where the gateway continuously processes the same set of instructions without termination. This infinite loop consumes system resources including cpu cycles and memory, effectively rendering the affected ColdFusion server incapable of processing legitimate requests. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-835, which describes the weakness of an infinite loop or recursion without proper termination conditions, and represents a classic example of resource exhaustion through malformed input processing. From an operational perspective, this vulnerability can be classified under the ATT&CK technique T1499.004, specifically targeting availability through network denial of service attacks, potentially causing cascading failures in web applications that depend on ColdFusion for their backend operations.
The impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple service disruption, as it can affect entire enterprise applications that rely on ColdFusion for their core functionality. Organizations running ColdFusion MX 7 or 7.01 may experience complete service outages, particularly in high-traffic environments where the infinite loop quickly consumes available system resources. The vulnerability affects the broader ColdFusion ecosystem and can be exploited by attackers to perform coordinated denial of service attacks against web applications, potentially leading to business disruption and financial losses. Network administrators and security teams face significant challenges in detecting and mitigating this vulnerability, as the attack vectors are not explicitly defined in the public disclosure, making it difficult to implement targeted defensive measures. The lack of specific exploitation details in the CVE description also means that organizations must rely on general security practices including patch management, network segmentation, and monitoring for unusual resource consumption patterns to protect against potential exploitation attempts. Organizations should prioritize immediate patching and implement network-level controls to prevent unauthorized access to the Flash Remoting Gateway interface while maintaining comprehensive logging and monitoring of application behavior to detect anomalous processing patterns that may indicate exploitation attempts.