CVE-2011-2249 in Solaris
Summary
by MITRE
Unspecified vulnerability in Oracle Solaris 8, 9, and 10 allows remote authenticated users to affect availability, related to TCP/IP.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 01/12/2025
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2011-2249 represents a significant security flaw within Oracle Solaris operating systems across versions 8, 9, and 10. This issue resides within the TCP/IP networking stack implementation and affects authenticated remote attackers who can potentially disrupt system availability. The unspecified nature of the vulnerability indicates that the exact technical mechanism remains undisclosed, though it clearly impacts the core network protocol handling capabilities of these legacy systems. Such vulnerabilities in fundamental networking components pose severe risks to enterprise environments where Solaris systems operate as critical infrastructure components.
The technical flaw manifests within the TCP/IP implementation of the affected Solaris versions, specifically targeting the handling of network packets or connection states that could be exploited by authenticated users with network access. This type of vulnerability typically involves improper input validation, memory corruption, or state management errors within the kernel networking code that processes TCP connections. The vulnerability's classification as affecting availability suggests potential denial of service conditions where legitimate network services could be disrupted or rendered inaccessible to authorized users. Based on the ATT&CK framework, this vulnerability would map to the T1498 technique for network denial of service, potentially enabling attackers to exhaust system resources or corrupt network state information.
The operational impact of CVE-2011-2249 extends beyond simple service disruption to potentially compromise entire network infrastructures that depend on Solaris systems for core networking functions. Organizations running these legacy versions face elevated risk of unauthorized network disruption, particularly in environments where network availability is critical for business operations. The vulnerability's authentication requirement limits exploitation to users who already have legitimate access to the system, but this does not diminish the potential impact as attackers could leverage compromised accounts or credentials to achieve their objectives. The affected versions of Solaris have reached end-of-life status, making mitigation more challenging as vendor support and security updates are no longer provided.
Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability must prioritize immediate system hardening and patch management where possible, though the age of the affected versions presents significant challenges. Organizations should implement network segmentation to limit access to affected systems and deploy intrusion detection systems to monitor for suspicious network activity patterns that might indicate exploitation attempts. The CWE taxonomy would classify this vulnerability as a weakness in the implementation of network protocols, potentially falling under CWE-119 for memory corruption or CWE-362 for concurrent execution issues in network handling code. System administrators should consider implementing additional monitoring for TCP connection states and network packet processing anomalies that could indicate exploitation attempts, while also planning migration strategies away from unsupported Solaris versions to modern, supported operating systems that receive regular security updates and patches.