CVE-2008-6140 in one-X
Summary
by MITRE
Unspecified vulnerability in the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) implementation in Avaya one-X Desktop Edition 2.1.0.78 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via unspecified vectors.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/28/2018
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2008-6140 represents a critical security flaw within the Session Initiation Protocol implementation of Avaya one-X Desktop Edition version 2.1.0.78. This SIP-based desktop application serves as a unified communications client that facilitates voice and video conferencing, instant messaging, and other real-time collaboration features in enterprise environments. The unspecified nature of the vulnerability vectors suggests that multiple attack pathways could potentially trigger the denial of service condition, making the flaw particularly concerning for security professionals tasked with defending against sophisticated threats. The vulnerability exists at the protocol implementation level, indicating that the software's handling of SIP messages contains a weakness that can be exploited by remote adversaries without requiring local system access or authentication credentials. This type of vulnerability directly impacts the availability of communication services within organizations that rely on Avaya's unified communications platform.
The technical exploitation of this vulnerability manifests as a remote denial of service condition that causes the affected application to crash and terminate unexpectedly. When an attacker successfully triggers this flaw, the SIP implementation within the one-X Desktop Edition client experiences a critical failure that results in the application becoming unresponsive or completely ceasing operations. The crash typically occurs during normal SIP message processing or when the client encounters malformed or specially crafted SIP packets designed to exploit the underlying implementation weakness. This behavior aligns with common patterns found in buffer overflow vulnerabilities or improper input validation flaws that are classified under CWE-121, which deals with stack-based buffer overflows, and CWE-122, which addresses heap-based buffer overflows. The remote nature of the attack means that threat actors can exploit this vulnerability from outside the local network, potentially affecting enterprise communication systems that have exposed the client application to external traffic.
The operational impact of CVE-2008-6140 extends beyond simple application crashes to potentially disrupt critical business communication processes within organizations. Enterprises that depend on Avaya's one-X Desktop Edition for their unified communications infrastructure face significant risks when this vulnerability remains unpatched, as it can lead to extended periods of communication downtime that affect productivity, customer service, and internal collaboration. The vulnerability's potential for remote exploitation means that attackers could target multiple endpoints simultaneously, amplifying the impact across an organization's communication network. This type of denial of service vulnerability can be particularly damaging in mission-critical environments where real-time communication is essential for business operations, such as healthcare facilities, financial institutions, or emergency response systems. The attack surface for this vulnerability includes any network segment that has the Avaya client application installed and configured to process SIP traffic from external sources, making it a prime target for both opportunistic and targeted attacks.
Organizations should implement immediate mitigations to address this vulnerability while awaiting official patches from Avaya. Network segmentation strategies should be employed to limit external access to SIP ports and services, particularly by implementing firewall rules that restrict SIP traffic to authorized internal network segments only. The principle of least privilege should be enforced by configuring the one-X Desktop Edition to operate in restricted modes that minimize exposure to external network traffic. Security monitoring solutions should be configured to detect unusual SIP traffic patterns that might indicate exploitation attempts, and intrusion detection systems should be tuned to identify potential buffer overflow or malformed packet attacks targeting the SIP implementation. According to ATT&CK framework category T1499, which covers network denial of service attacks, this vulnerability represents a significant risk for organizations that have not implemented proper network segmentation and access controls. System administrators should also consider implementing application whitelisting policies that restrict execution of unauthorized versions of the Avaya client software, and regular security assessments should be conducted to identify other potentially vulnerable components within the unified communications infrastructure. The remediation process should include immediate deployment of Avaya's official security patches and comprehensive testing to ensure that the vulnerability has been properly addressed without introducing new issues into the production environment.