CVE-2013-4688 in Junos
Summary
by MITRE
flowd in Juniper Junos 10.4 before 10.4R11 on SRX devices, when the MSRPC Application Layer Gateway (ALG) is enabled, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (daemon crash) via crafted MSRPC requests, aka PR 772834.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 12/25/2024
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2013-4688 affects the flowd daemon component within Juniper Junos operating system version 10.4 and earlier releases on SRX series devices. This issue specifically manifests when the MSRPC Application Layer Gateway functionality is enabled, creating a potential attack surface that remote adversaries can exploit to disrupt service availability. The flowd daemon serves as a critical networking component responsible for flow processing and traffic management within the SRX device architecture, making this vulnerability particularly concerning for network infrastructure security.
The technical flaw stems from inadequate input validation within the MSRPC ALG implementation, where crafted malicious MSRPC requests can trigger buffer overflows or memory corruption conditions within the flowd daemon process. When these malformed requests are processed by the daemon, they cause the application to crash and restart, resulting in a denial of service condition that disrupts network connectivity and service availability. This vulnerability operates at the application layer and leverages the MSRPC protocol which is commonly used for Windows remote procedure calls, making it particularly relevant in mixed network environments where such protocols might be encountered.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple service disruption, as it can affect network reliability and availability in production environments. Network administrators may experience unexpected service interruptions that require manual intervention to restore normal operations, potentially affecting business continuity and network performance. The vulnerability affects the core network processing capabilities of SRX devices, which are designed to provide security services including firewalling, intrusion prevention, and application layer inspection, making the impact of such a denial of service particularly severe.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2013-4688 should prioritize the immediate application of Juniper's official security patches and firmware updates that address the MSRPC ALG processing flaw. Organizations should disable the MSRPC ALG functionality on affected SRX devices when it is not actively required, as this provides an effective workaround while awaiting patch deployment. Network segmentation and monitoring should be implemented to detect anomalous MSRPC traffic patterns that might indicate exploitation attempts. This vulnerability aligns with CWE-121 and CWE-122 categories related to buffer overflows and memory corruption issues, and represents a typical example of how application layer gateways can introduce security weaknesses when not properly validated against malicious inputs. The attack vector follows ATT&CK technique T1498 which focuses on denial of service attacks, specifically targeting network infrastructure components to disrupt availability. Regular security assessments and vulnerability scanning should be conducted to identify similar issues in other network services and applications that might be susceptible to similar exploitation patterns.