CVE-2007-6451 in Wireshark
Summary
by MITRE
Unspecified vulnerability in the CIP dissector in Wireshark (formerly Ethereal) 0.9.14 to 0.99.6 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via unknown vectors that trigger allocation of large amounts of memory.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 08/02/2019
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2007-6451 represents a critical denial of service flaw within Wireshark's CIP dissector component, affecting versions ranging from 0.9.14 through 0.99.6. This issue manifests as a remote attack vector that can be exploited by malicious actors to crash the network protocol analyzer application. The vulnerability operates through unspecified attack vectors that specifically target memory allocation mechanisms within the CIP dissector, which is responsible for analyzing Common Industrial Protocol traffic commonly used in industrial control systems and manufacturing environments. The flaw is categorized under CWE-122, which describes improper restriction of operations within the bounds of a memory buffer, and aligns with ATT&CK technique T1499.004 for network denial of service attacks.
The technical exploitation of this vulnerability occurs when a specially crafted network packet containing CIP protocol data is processed by Wireshark's dissector engine. The dissector fails to properly validate or limit memory allocation requests that arise from parsing malformed or specially constructed CIP messages, leading to excessive memory consumption that ultimately causes the application to crash. This behavior stems from inadequate input validation and memory management practices within the dissector code, where the parser does not enforce reasonable limits on data structures that could grow exponentially during packet analysis. The vulnerability demonstrates characteristics of heap-based buffer overflow conditions and memory exhaustion attacks, where the attacker can manipulate the dissector into allocating massive amounts of memory that exceed system resources.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability poses significant risks to network monitoring and security operations that rely on Wireshark for industrial network analysis. Organizations utilizing industrial control systems, SCADA networks, or manufacturing environments where CIP protocol traffic is prevalent face potential disruption of network monitoring capabilities. The remote nature of the attack means that an attacker positioned anywhere on the network can potentially trigger the crash without requiring local system access or authentication. This makes the vulnerability particularly dangerous in operational technology environments where network monitoring systems must remain highly available and reliable. The impact extends beyond simple service disruption to potentially compromising the integrity of network forensic analysis and incident response capabilities.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2007-6451 should focus on immediate version upgrades to Wireshark 0.99.7 or later, which contain the necessary patches to address the memory allocation issues within the CIP dissector. Network administrators should implement network segmentation and access controls to limit exposure of vulnerable Wireshark instances to untrusted networks. Additionally, monitoring for unusual memory consumption patterns and implementing intrusion detection systems that can identify malformed CIP traffic patterns may help detect exploitation attempts. Organizations should also consider implementing alternative network analysis tools or deploying network protocol analyzers with more robust memory management practices to reduce the attack surface. The vulnerability highlights the importance of proper input validation and memory management in protocol dissector implementations, particularly for industrial protocols that may encounter unpredictable or malicious network traffic in operational environments.