CVE-2007-3389 in Wireshark
Summary
by MITRE
Wireshark before 0.99.6 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via a crafted chunked encoding in an HTTP response, possibly related to a zero-length payload.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 07/21/2019
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2007-3389 affects Wireshark versions prior to 0.99.6 and represents a significant denial of service weakness that can be exploited remotely by attackers to crash the network protocol analyzer application. This flaw specifically targets the HTTP protocol decoding functionality within Wireshark, where the application fails to properly handle crafted chunked encoding sequences in HTTP responses. The vulnerability manifests when Wireshark encounters a specially constructed HTTP response containing chunked encoding with a zero-length payload, which causes the application to crash during packet analysis. This issue falls under the category of improper input validation and memory handling within protocol dissectors, making it particularly dangerous in network monitoring and forensic analysis environments where Wireshark is commonly deployed.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from Wireshark's HTTP dissector failing to properly validate chunked encoding lengths and payload characteristics during packet processing. When a crafted HTTP response with chunked encoding is captured and analyzed by the vulnerable Wireshark version, the application attempts to process a zero-length chunk which triggers an unhandled exception or buffer overflow condition. This improper handling of edge cases in HTTP protocol parsing demonstrates a classic software security flaw where the application does not adequately account for malformed or malicious input patterns that could be encountered in real-world network traffic. The vulnerability is classified as a buffer overflow or memory corruption issue under CWE-129 and CWE-787, representing weaknesses in input validation and memory management that can lead to application instability and crashes.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple service disruption as it can be leveraged by remote attackers to systematically crash network analysis tools used for monitoring and security auditing. In enterprise environments where Wireshark serves as a critical component for network traffic analysis, intrusion detection, and forensic investigations, such a denial of service condition can severely compromise security operations and network visibility capabilities. Attackers can craft malicious HTTP responses containing the specific chunked encoding pattern and transmit them to network monitoring systems running vulnerable Wireshark versions, causing immediate application crashes and potentially disrupting ongoing network monitoring activities. This vulnerability aligns with ATT&CK technique T1498 which covers denial of service attacks, and specifically targets the application availability aspect of the CIA triad.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2007-3389 primarily focus on immediate software updates and patches provided by the Wireshark development team. Organizations should upgrade to Wireshark version 0.99.6 or later where the vulnerability has been addressed through improved input validation and robust error handling in the HTTP protocol dissector. Network administrators should also implement network segmentation and monitoring to detect and prevent the injection of malicious HTTP traffic patterns that could exploit this vulnerability. Additional defensive measures include configuring network appliances and firewalls to filter suspicious HTTP traffic patterns, implementing proper input sanitization at network boundaries, and maintaining up-to-date security patches across all network monitoring tools. The vulnerability highlights the importance of proper protocol parsing and input validation in security tools, emphasizing that even legitimate network analysis applications can be compromised by carefully crafted malicious inputs that exploit implementation flaws in protocol handling code.