CVE-2013-3389 in Prime Central For Hosted Collaboration Solution Assurance
Summary
by MITRE
Cisco Prime Central for Hosted Collaboration Solution (HCS) Assurance 8.6 and 9.x before 9.2(1) allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (memory consumption) via a flood of TCP packets to port (1) 61615 or (2) 61616, aka Bug ID CSCtz90114.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 05/09/2017
Cisco Prime Central HCS Assurance version 8.6 and 9.x before 9.2(1) contains a critical memory consumption vulnerability that enables remote attackers to execute denial of service attacks through TCP packet flooding on specific ports. This vulnerability affects the application's handling of incoming network connections and demonstrates a fundamental flaw in resource management and input validation. The affected ports 61615 and 61616 represent communication endpoints that are not properly secured against excessive connection attempts, creating a pathway for attackers to consume system memory resources.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from insufficient validation of TCP connection requests and inadequate resource allocation controls within the application's network processing layer. When attackers flood these specific ports with TCP packets, the system fails to properly terminate or limit connection attempts, leading to progressive memory exhaustion. This behavior aligns with common denial of service attack patterns and represents a failure in the application's ability to handle abnormal traffic patterns. The vulnerability operates at the network protocol level, exploiting weaknesses in how the system processes incoming connections without proper rate limiting or connection tracking mechanisms.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple service disruption to potentially compromise the entire system stability and availability. Memory consumption attacks of this nature can lead to complete system crashes, requiring manual intervention and system restarts to restore normal operations. Organizations relying on Cisco Prime Central for their hosted collaboration solutions face significant risk of service interruptions that could affect business continuity and collaboration workflows. The vulnerability affects multiple versions within the 8.6 and 9.x release lines, indicating a widespread issue that would require coordinated patching efforts across various system deployments.
This vulnerability maps to CWE-400, which describes unchecked resource consumption, and demonstrates characteristics consistent with the ATT&CK technique T1499.004 for network denial of service. The attack vector requires minimal technical expertise while delivering significant impact, making it particularly dangerous for enterprise environments. Organizations should implement immediate network-level protections including firewall rules to restrict access to ports 61615 and 61616, establish connection rate limiting policies, and deploy intrusion detection systems to monitor for anomalous traffic patterns. The recommended mitigation strategy includes applying the official Cisco patch version 9.2(1) or higher to address the root cause of the memory consumption issue.
Security teams should also consider implementing network segmentation to isolate the affected systems, deploy monitoring solutions to detect unusual connection patterns, and establish incident response procedures for handling potential denial of service events. The vulnerability highlights the importance of proper resource management in network applications and the necessity of implementing robust connection handling mechanisms to prevent exploitation through simple traffic flooding attacks. Organizations should conduct thorough vulnerability assessments to identify similar issues in other network services and ensure comprehensive protection against resource exhaustion attacks.