CVE-2014-6209 in DB2
Summary
by MITRE
IBM DB2 9.5 through FP10, 9.7 through FP10, 9.8 through FP5, 10.1 through FP4, and 10.5 before FP5 on Linux, UNIX, and Windows allows remote authenticated users to cause a denial of service (daemon crash) by specifying an identity column within a crafted ALTER TABLE statement.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 04/07/2022
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2014-6209 represents a critical denial of service flaw within IBM DB2 database management systems across multiple versions and platforms. This security weakness specifically affects IBM DB2 versions 9.5 through FP10, 9.7 through FP10, 9.8 through FP5, 10.1 through FP4, and 10.5 before FP5 when running on Linux, UNIX, and Windows operating systems. The flaw manifests through a carefully crafted ALTER TABLE statement that includes an identity column specification, which triggers an unexpected daemon crash resulting in system unavailability. This vulnerability falls under the category of improper input validation and represents a significant threat to database availability and system stability.
The technical exploitation of this vulnerability occurs when a remote authenticated user crafts a specific ALTER TABLE statement containing an identity column definition that causes the DB2 daemon process to terminate unexpectedly. The flaw stems from inadequate validation of table alteration commands, particularly those involving identity columns, which are used to automatically generate unique values for database records. When the database engine processes this malformed statement, it fails to properly handle the identity column specification, leading to a crash of the database daemon service. This behavior constitutes a classic denial of service condition where legitimate database operations are disrupted through malicious input manipulation.
From an operational impact perspective, this vulnerability poses substantial risk to organizations relying on IBM DB2 for critical data operations. The daemon crash resulting from the crafted ALTER TABLE statement effectively renders the database service unavailable until manual intervention or automatic restart occurs. This disruption can lead to extended downtime for applications dependent on the affected database, potentially causing business disruption and data access issues. The remote nature of the attack means that unauthorized users can exploit this vulnerability from external networks without requiring local system access, making it particularly dangerous in production environments. Organizations may experience cascading effects as dependent applications and services become unavailable due to the database outage.
The vulnerability aligns with CWE-121, which describes stack-based buffer overflow conditions, and relates to improper input validation practices that fail to properly sanitize user-supplied data. From an attack framework perspective, this weakness maps to the execution phase of the kill chain, where adversaries leverage system vulnerabilities to cause service disruption. The ATT&CK framework categorizes this under privilege escalation and denial of service techniques, as attackers can exploit authenticated access to cause system instability. Organizations should implement immediate mitigations including applying the relevant IBM security patches, implementing network segmentation to limit access to database systems, and establishing monitoring protocols to detect unusual database daemon behavior. The recommended approach involves upgrading to patched versions of IBM DB2, implementing proper access controls to limit ALTER TABLE privileges, and configuring intrusion detection systems to monitor for suspicious database activities.