CVE-2007-3132 in Ghost Solutions Suite
Summary
by MITRE
Multiple vulnerabilities in Symantec Ghost Solution Suite 2.0.0 and earlier, with Ghost 8.0.992 and possibly other versions, allow remote attackers to cause a denial of service (client or server crash) via malformed requests to the daemon port, 1346/udp or 1347/udp.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/24/2017
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2007-3132 affects Symantec Ghost Solution Suite version 2.0.0 and earlier, specifically targeting Ghost 8.0.992 and potentially other versions within the same release cycle. This issue represents a significant security weakness in network-based service implementations that could be exploited by remote attackers to disrupt system operations. The affected service operates on UDP ports 1346 and 1347, which are designated for daemon communication within the Ghost Solution Suite infrastructure. These ports serve as critical entry points for network operations and client-server communications, making them prime targets for exploitation attempts.
The technical flaw manifests through improper input validation mechanisms within the daemon processes that listen on the specified UDP ports. When malformed requests are sent to these ports, the service fails to properly handle the unexpected data structures or malformed packets, leading to application crashes or system instability. This type of vulnerability falls under the category of improper input validation, which is categorized as CWE-20 in the Common Weakness Enumeration framework. The vulnerability essentially allows attackers to send crafted packets that trigger buffer overflows, memory corruption, or other state management failures within the daemon processes, causing the service to terminate unexpectedly or consume excessive system resources.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple service disruption, as it can result in complete system crashes that affect both client and server components of the Ghost Solution Suite. When the daemon processes crash, it can lead to complete loss of network connectivity for ghost imaging operations, potentially disrupting critical backup and recovery procedures that organizations rely upon for data protection. This vulnerability particularly affects enterprise environments where Symantec Ghost is used for large-scale system deployment and management, as a successful attack could halt critical IT operations and require manual intervention to restore services. The remote nature of the attack means that adversaries do not require physical access or local network privileges to exploit this weakness, making it particularly dangerous in networked environments.
Organizations should implement immediate mitigations including network segmentation to isolate the affected ports from untrusted networks, firewall rules to restrict access to UDP ports 1346 and 1347 to only trusted sources, and network monitoring to detect anomalous traffic patterns on these ports. The vulnerability aligns with ATT&CK technique T1498, which describes denial of service attacks, and represents a classic example of how insufficient input validation can lead to service disruption. Additionally, this issue demonstrates the importance of secure coding practices and proper error handling in network services, as the implementation should have included robust input sanitization and validation mechanisms to prevent malformed requests from causing system instability. Organizations should also consider applying the vendor-provided patches or upgrading to newer versions of the Ghost Solution Suite that address this vulnerability, as the affected versions represent legacy software that may contain additional undiscovered weaknesses.