CVE-2010-5145 in Web Security
Summary
by MITRE
The Filtering Service in Websense Web Security and Web Filter before 6.3.1 Hotfix 136 and 7.x before 7.1.1 on Windows allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (filtering outage) via a crafted sequence of characters in a URI.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 01/12/2018
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2010-5145 affects the Filtering Service component within Websense Web Security and Web Filter products across specific version ranges including 6.3.1 Hotfix 136 and 7.x versions prior to 7.1.1 on Windows operating systems. This issue represents a significant security weakness that could be exploited by remote attackers to disrupt the normal operation of web filtering services. The vulnerability specifically targets the URI parsing mechanism within the filtering service, where certain crafted character sequences can trigger unexpected behavior leading to system instability.
The technical flaw manifests in how the filtering service processes Uniform Resource Identifiers containing specially crafted character sequences. When such malformed URIs are processed by the vulnerable Websense components, the system fails to properly handle the input validation, resulting in a condition that causes the filtering service to crash or become unresponsive. This behavior aligns with CWE-129, which describes improper validation of length or bounds of input data, and represents a classic example of input validation failure that can lead to denial of service conditions. The vulnerability exploits a weakness in the URI handling logic where the system does not adequately sanitize or validate character sequences before processing them through the filtering engine.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple service disruption to potentially compromise the security posture of organizations relying on Websense for web content filtering. When the filtering service becomes unavailable due to this vulnerability, organizations lose their ability to enforce web usage policies, block malicious websites, and maintain network security controls. This creates a window of opportunity for attackers to bypass existing security measures while the filtering service remains offline. The vulnerability also aligns with ATT&CK technique T1499.004, which covers network denial of service attacks, as the exploitation results in a service outage that affects network operations. Organizations may experience increased risk of malware infections, data exfiltration attempts, and unauthorized access to sensitive resources during the period when the filtering service is compromised.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2010-5145 primarily involve applying the vendor-provided patches and updates to bring the Websense installations to versions 6.3.1 Hotfix 136 or 7.1.1 and later. Organizations should also implement network monitoring to detect unusual traffic patterns or service disruptions that might indicate exploitation attempts. Additional defensive measures include implementing network segmentation to limit the impact of potential exploitation, establishing redundant filtering services where possible, and maintaining comprehensive incident response procedures to quickly address service outages. The vulnerability underscores the importance of keeping security infrastructure components up to date and demonstrates how seemingly minor input validation flaws can result in significant operational disruptions that affect entire network security frameworks.