CVE-2014-3708 in Compute
Summary
by MITRE
OpenStack Compute (Nova) before 2014.1.4 and 2014.2.x before 2014.2.1 allows remote authenticated users to cause a denial of service (CPU consumption) via an IP filter in a list active servers API request.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 04/03/2022
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2014-3708 represents a significant denial of service weakness within OpenStack Compute (Nova) components that affected versions prior to specific patch releases. This issue stems from insufficient input validation mechanisms within the list active servers API request processing functionality, specifically when handling IP filter parameters. The vulnerability impacts both the 2014.1.x release line before 2014.1.4 and the 2014.2.x release line before 2014.2.1, creating a widespread exposure across multiple OpenStack deployments that had not yet applied the necessary security patches.
The technical flaw manifests when authenticated users submit specially crafted API requests containing IP filter parameters to the list active servers endpoint. The Nova service fails to properly validate or limit the processing of these filter parameters, leading to excessive CPU consumption during request handling. This occurs because the system processes the malformed IP filter data in a manner that creates computationally expensive operations, potentially leading to resource exhaustion and service unavailability. The vulnerability operates at the application layer and leverages the legitimate API functionality to perform resource-intensive operations that were not properly constrained.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability presents a serious risk to cloud infrastructure availability and performance. An authenticated attacker with access to the Nova API can exploit this weakness to consume excessive CPU resources on the compute nodes, potentially causing legitimate users to experience service degradation or complete unavailability of the affected services. The impact extends beyond simple resource exhaustion as it can affect the overall stability of the OpenStack deployment, potentially causing cascading failures in related services that depend on the compute infrastructure. This vulnerability particularly affects multi-tenant environments where multiple users share the same compute resources.
The vulnerability aligns with CWE-400, which catalogs weakness categories related to resource exhaustion, and can be categorized under the ATT&CK framework as a Denial of Service technique using resource exhaustion. Organizations should implement immediate mitigation strategies including applying the relevant security patches that were released as part of the 2014.1.4 and 2014.2.1 versions, implementing rate limiting mechanisms for API requests, and establishing monitoring for unusual CPU consumption patterns. Additionally, security teams should consider implementing input validation controls to prevent malformed IP filter parameters from being processed, and conduct regular vulnerability assessments to identify similar weaknesses in other components of their cloud infrastructure.