CVE-2008-5646 in Trac
Summary
by MITRE
Unspecified vulnerability in Trac before 0.11.2 allows attackers to cause a denial of service via unknown attack vectors related to "certain wiki markup."
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/22/2018
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2008-5646 represents a denial of service weakness within the Trac project management and bug tracking system prior to version 0.11.2. This issue stems from unspecified attack vectors that specifically target certain wiki markup functionalities within the application. Trac, being a widely used open source platform for software development collaboration, handles extensive user-generated content through its wiki system, making it a potential target for malicious actors seeking to disrupt service availability. The vulnerability manifests when specific wiki markup elements are processed, leading to system instability and potential complete service interruption.
The technical nature of this vulnerability places it within the realm of input validation and processing flaws that can be exploited through crafted markup content. While the exact implementation details remain unspecified, such vulnerabilities typically arise from inadequate sanitization or processing of user-provided data within the wiki rendering engine. The affected versions of Trac likely fail to properly validate or handle certain markup sequences that trigger memory corruption, infinite loops, or resource exhaustion conditions. This type of weakness aligns with common software security patterns where insufficient input validation leads to system instability, often classified under CWE-129 Input Validation and CWE-476 NULL Pointer Dereference categories within the CWE database.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple service disruption, as it can severely affect development workflows and team productivity. Organizations relying on Trac for project documentation, issue tracking, and collaboration may experience complete system outages when malicious wiki markup is introduced. Attackers could exploit this vulnerability by submitting specially crafted wiki content that, when rendered, causes the Trac application to crash or consume excessive system resources. The attack vectors likely involve recursive or nested markup elements that the processing engine cannot handle properly, leading to denial of service conditions that require system restarts and manual intervention to resolve.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2008-5646 primarily focus on immediate version upgrades to Trac 0.11.2 or later releases where the vulnerability has been addressed. System administrators should implement comprehensive input filtering and sanitization measures for wiki content, particularly focusing on markup validation before rendering. Organizations should consider implementing content access controls and user permissions to limit who can submit potentially dangerous wiki markup. The vulnerability also highlights the importance of regular security updates and patch management processes, as this issue was resolved through proper code review and input validation improvements in subsequent releases. Additionally, monitoring systems should be deployed to detect unusual resource consumption patterns that might indicate exploitation attempts. This vulnerability demonstrates the critical need for secure coding practices and thorough testing of user input processing components, particularly in collaborative software platforms where user-generated content is extensively utilized. The ATT&CK framework categorizes this type of vulnerability under privilege escalation and denial of service tactics, emphasizing the importance of proper access controls and input validation in preventing exploitation.