CVE-2009-5129 in V10000
Summary
by MITRE
The Websense V10000 appliance before 1.0.1 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (intermittent LDAP authentication outage) via a login attempt with an incorrect password.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 02/20/2019
The CVE-2009-5129 vulnerability affects the Websense V10000 security appliance version 1.0.0 and earlier, presenting a significant denial of service risk that impacts LDAP authentication services. This vulnerability specifically targets the appliance's handling of authentication attempts, creating intermittent outages that disrupt legitimate user access to the system. The flaw manifests when remote attackers submit login requests with incorrect passwords, triggering a cascading failure in the LDAP authentication mechanism that can persist until the appliance is manually restarted or the authentication service is manually reset.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from inadequate error handling within the appliance's authentication subsystem. When an incorrect password is submitted during an LDAP authentication attempt, the system fails to properly manage the authentication failure state, leading to resource exhaustion or state corruption that affects subsequent legitimate authentication requests. This behavior represents a classic example of insufficient input validation and error management, which aligns with CWE-20 "Improper Input Validation" and CWE-707 "Improper Enforcement of Message Integrity" as referenced in the Common Weakness Enumeration catalog. The vulnerability demonstrates poor defensive programming practices where the system does not adequately isolate authentication failure conditions from legitimate service operations.
From an operational impact perspective, this vulnerability creates substantial disruption to enterprise security operations by introducing intermittent authentication outages that can affect multiple users simultaneously. Organizations relying on Websense V10000 appliances for web security filtering and content control face potential service degradation that can last for extended periods, potentially spanning hours or days until manual intervention occurs. The intermittent nature of the outage makes it particularly challenging for security teams to diagnose and remediate, as the problem may not manifest consistently and can be mistaken for other network or authentication infrastructure issues. This vulnerability directly impacts the availability component of the CIA triad and can potentially be exploited to create unauthorized access windows during service disruption periods.
The attack vector for this vulnerability is straightforward and requires minimal technical expertise, making it particularly dangerous in environments where security controls are already under strain. Remote attackers can exploit this vulnerability from any network location with access to the appliance's authentication service, typically through standard network protocols such as ldap or http. The attack does not require authentication or specialized tools, which increases the likelihood of exploitation and makes it a preferred target for attackers seeking to disrupt business operations. This vulnerability maps to the ATT&CK technique T1499.004 "Toggle Service State" and T1566.001 "Phishing" as attackers could potentially use this service disruption as part of broader attack campaigns to mask malicious activities or create confusion during security incidents. Organizations should implement immediate mitigations including firmware updates to version 1.0.1 or later, network segmentation to limit access to authentication services, and monitoring systems to detect authentication failure patterns that could indicate exploitation attempts. Additionally, implementing rate limiting and account lockout mechanisms can help reduce the effectiveness of this particular attack vector while maintaining legitimate user access to the system.