CVE-2012-2393 in Wireshark
Summary
by MITRE
epan/dissectors/packet-diameter.c in the DIAMETER dissector in Wireshark 1.4.x before 1.4.13 and 1.6.x before 1.6.8 does not properly construct certain array data structures, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (application crash) via a crafted packet that triggers incorrect memory allocation.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 11/28/2024
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2012-2393 represents a critical memory corruption issue within the DIAMETER protocol dissector of Wireshark, a widely used network protocol analyzer. This flaw exists in specific versions of Wireshark including 1.4.x prior to 1.4.13 and 1.6.x prior to 1.6.8, making it a persistent threat to network security analysts and forensic investigators who rely on this tool for traffic analysis. The vulnerability stems from improper array data structure construction within the packet-diameter.c file, which governs how Wireshark interprets DIAMETER protocol traffic commonly used in 3GPP networks for authentication, authorization, and accounting services.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability involves the DIAMETER dissector's failure to correctly handle memory allocation when processing malformed DIAMETER packets. When a remote attacker crafts a specially designed packet that exploits this memory handling flaw, the dissector attempts to allocate memory incorrectly, leading to a buffer overflow or memory corruption condition. This improper memory management creates a scenario where the application crashes unpredictably, resulting in a denial of service condition that effectively renders the Wireshark application unusable for network analysis purposes. The flaw specifically targets the array data structure construction process, which is fundamental to how the dissector processes DIAMETER attribute-value pairs and their associated data lengths.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability presents significant risks to network security operations and incident response activities. Security professionals who depend on Wireshark for monitoring and analyzing DIAMETER traffic in mobile network environments face potential disruption of their analytical capabilities when encountering maliciously crafted packets. The remote exploitation nature of this vulnerability means that attackers can trigger the denial of service condition without requiring physical access or elevated privileges, simply by transmitting malformed DIAMETER traffic to a system running the vulnerable Wireshark version. This makes the vulnerability particularly dangerous in environments where network monitoring tools are actively processing traffic from untrusted sources, such as public networks or during forensic analysis of suspicious traffic.
The impact of this vulnerability aligns with CWE-129, which addresses improper validation of array index values, and can be mapped to ATT&CK technique T1499.004 for network denial of service attacks. Organizations using affected Wireshark versions face the risk of operational disruption during critical network investigations, potentially compromising security monitoring capabilities during incident response. The vulnerability's classification as a denial of service issue means that it can be exploited to interrupt network analysis workflows, potentially delaying security investigations and compromising the ability to detect and respond to other network threats. Network security teams should prioritize patching affected systems, as the vulnerability can be leveraged to disrupt critical monitoring operations without requiring advanced exploitation capabilities or specialized knowledge beyond basic packet crafting skills.
Mitigation strategies should focus on immediate version updates to Wireshark 1.4.13 or 1.6.8, whichever applies to the affected deployment. Network administrators should also consider implementing network segmentation and traffic filtering to prevent potentially malicious DIAMETER traffic from reaching systems running vulnerable Wireshark versions. Additional defensive measures include monitoring for unusual application crash patterns and implementing automated alerting for service disruptions. Security teams should also conduct vulnerability assessments to identify all systems running affected Wireshark versions and establish patch management procedures to ensure timely remediation of similar vulnerabilities in network analysis tools.