CVE-2010-0748 in transmission
Summary
by MITRE
Transmission before 1.92 allows an attacker to cause a denial of service (crash) or possibly have other unspecified impact via a large number of tr arguments in a magnet link.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 02/01/2024
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2010-0748 affects Transmission BitTorrent client versions prior to 1.92, representing a significant security flaw that could be exploited to disrupt service availability and potentially execute unauthorized actions. This issue manifests through the improper handling of magnet links containing an excessive number of tracker arguments, creating a condition where the client becomes vulnerable to malicious input manipulation. The flaw demonstrates characteristics consistent with buffer overflow conditions and input validation failures that are commonly categorized under CWE-121, which deals with buffer overflow conditions in heap-based data structures.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from Transmission's insufficient validation mechanisms when processing magnet URI parameters. When a magnet link contains an excessive number of tracker arguments, the client's parsing routine fails to properly manage memory allocation for storing these parameters, leading to potential memory corruption and subsequent application instability. This behavior aligns with ATT&CK technique T1499.001 which covers network denial of service attacks through resource exhaustion. The flaw specifically impacts the client's ability to process torrent metadata, as the application attempts to allocate memory for each tracker argument without adequate bounds checking, resulting in memory exhaustion or stack corruption that ultimately causes the application to crash or behave unpredictably.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple service disruption to potentially enable more sophisticated attack vectors. An attacker could leverage this flaw to repeatedly crash Transmission clients across a network, effectively creating a denial of service condition that prevents legitimate users from accessing torrent files. Additionally, the unspecified additional impacts suggest potential for privilege escalation or arbitrary code execution depending on the specific memory corruption patterns encountered during exploitation. The vulnerability affects both local and remote attack scenarios, as magnet links can be distributed through various channels including malicious websites, email attachments, or peer-to-peer networks, making it particularly dangerous in distributed environments.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2010-0748 should prioritize immediate patching of Transmission clients to version 1.92 or later, which includes proper input validation and memory management improvements. Network administrators should implement strict input filtering for magnet links in environments where such links may be processed, particularly in web applications or proxy servers that handle user-submitted content. The implementation of rate limiting and connection pooling mechanisms can help reduce the impact of repeated exploitation attempts. Security monitoring should include detection of unusual patterns in client behavior, particularly unexpected crashes or memory usage spikes that could indicate exploitation attempts. Organizations should also consider implementing network segmentation to limit the potential impact of successful exploitation, as well as maintaining up-to-date vulnerability assessments to identify similar issues in other BitTorrent client implementations. Compliance with security standards such as those outlined in NIST SP 800-53 and ISO/IEC 27001 should include regular vulnerability scanning and remediation processes specifically targeting input validation weaknesses in client applications.