CVE-2007-1075 in TurboFTP
Summary
by MITRE
TurboFTP 5.30 Build 572 allows remote servers to cause a denial of service (CPU consumption) via a response with a large number of newline characters.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 08/24/2024
TurboFTP 5.30 Build 572 contains a vulnerability that enables remote servers to induce a denial of service condition through excessive CPU consumption by sending responses with numerous newline characters. This flaw represents a classic example of a resource exhaustion attack where the vulnerable application fails to properly handle malformed or excessively formatted responses from remote servers during file transfer operations. The vulnerability specifically manifests when the FTP client encounters server responses containing an unusually high density of newline characters, causing the application to consume disproportionate CPU cycles in processing these responses. This behavior aligns with CWE-400, which categorizes resource exhaustion vulnerabilities as those that allow attackers to consume system resources such as CPU time, memory, or network bandwidth through malformed inputs or excessive data processing. The impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple service disruption as it can effectively render the FTP client unusable for legitimate operations, forcing users to restart the application or reboot systems to restore normal functionality. The operational implications are particularly concerning for environments where TurboFTP is used for critical file transfers, as an attacker could maintain sustained denial of service conditions that prevent legitimate business operations from proceeding. From an attack methodology perspective, this vulnerability follows patterns described in the MITRE ATT&CK framework under the denial of service technique, where adversaries target application-level resource consumption to compromise system availability. The flaw demonstrates poor input validation and handling within the FTP client's response parsing mechanism, which should ideally implement bounds checking and rate limiting to prevent excessive processing of malformed responses. Organizations using this version of TurboFTP should consider immediate mitigation through patching or implementing network-level controls to restrict communication with untrusted FTP servers. The vulnerability also highlights the importance of proper error handling and resource management in network protocol implementations, as similar issues could potentially exist in other FTP clients or network applications that fail to adequately validate server responses. Security practitioners should monitor for exploitation attempts targeting this specific vulnerability and ensure that all FTP client software is updated to versions that properly handle edge cases in server response formatting. The issue underscores the broader challenge of defending against application-level attacks that exploit seemingly benign protocol features to create resource exhaustion conditions, making it essential for security teams to implement comprehensive monitoring and response procedures for such threats.