CVE-2008-5425 in NOD32 Antivirus
Summary
by MITRE
ESet NOD32 2.70.0039.0000 does not properly handle (1) multipart/mixed e-mail messages with many MIME parts and possibly (2) e-mail messages with many "Content-type: message/rfc822;" headers, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (stack consumption or other resource consumption) via a large e-mail message, a related issue to CVE-2006-1173.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 11/29/2017
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2008-5425 affects ESet NOD32 version 2.70.0039.0000 and represents a significant denial of service weakness in email message processing capabilities. This flaw specifically manifests when the security software encounters email messages with complex multipart structures that exceed normal processing parameters. The vulnerability stems from inadequate handling of email message formats that contain numerous MIME parts within multipart/mixed content types, creating a condition where the system's resource consumption becomes excessive during message analysis.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability exploits the software's failure to properly manage memory allocation and stack usage when processing email messages containing many Content-type: message/rfc822; headers. This particular email format structure creates a scenario where the NOD32 antivirus engine consumes increasingly large amounts of system resources as it attempts to parse and analyze each individual component within the message. The issue is particularly dangerous because it can be triggered through standard email communication channels without requiring any special privileges or authentication from the attacker, making it a readily exploitable denial of service vector.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability creates substantial risk for organizations relying on ESet NOD32 for email security protection. The resource consumption patterns can lead to complete system unavailability or severe performance degradation, effectively rendering the email security infrastructure ineffective during attack periods. Attackers can craft specially formatted emails with numerous MIME parts or rfc822 headers to consume memory and CPU resources until the system becomes unresponsive or crashes entirely. This type of attack directly impacts business continuity and can be used to disrupt critical communication channels within enterprise environments.
The vulnerability aligns with CWE-400, which addresses "Uncontrolled Resource Consumption" in software systems, and represents a classic example of resource exhaustion attacks that can be classified under the ATT&CK technique T1499.1 for "Network Denial of Service". The specific implementation pattern suggests a stack-based buffer overflow or memory allocation issue that occurs during the parsing of nested email structures, where each additional MIME part or rfc822 header increases the computational overhead exponentially. Organizations using this version of ESet NOD32 should immediately implement patches or updates to address the underlying parsing logic that fails to enforce reasonable limits on message complexity and resource consumption during email processing.
The remediation strategy should focus on implementing proper input validation and resource limits within the email message parser component. Security administrators should configure maximum message size limits and MIME part thresholds to prevent the system from attempting to process excessively complex email structures. Additionally, monitoring should be implemented to detect unusual resource consumption patterns that may indicate exploitation attempts. The fix should also include proper error handling for malformed email messages and ensure that the system gracefully degrades rather than consuming all available resources during processing of maliciously crafted messages.