CVE-2014-9166 in ColdFusion
Summary
by MITRE
Adobe ColdFusion 10 before Update 15 and 11 before Update 3 allows attackers to cause a denial of service (resource consumption) via unspecified vectors.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 12/08/2024
Adobe ColdFusion versions prior to specific updates contain a vulnerability that enables remote attackers to consume excessive system resources leading to denial of service conditions. This vulnerability affects Adobe ColdFusion 10 before Update 15 and Adobe ColdFusion 11 before Update 3, representing a significant security gap in the application server's resource management capabilities. The unspecified vectors suggest that multiple attack paths could potentially trigger this resource exhaustion condition, making the vulnerability particularly concerning for system administrators who must account for various potential attack surfaces. The vulnerability classification aligns with CWE-400 which encompasses unspecified resource management issues that can lead to denial of service conditions. From an operational perspective, this vulnerability represents a critical weakness in the software's ability to handle malicious input or requests without depleting system resources such as memory, CPU cycles, or file descriptors. Attackers could exploit this weakness by crafting specific requests that cause the ColdFusion server to consume increasing amounts of system resources until the server becomes unresponsive or crashes entirely. The impact extends beyond simple service disruption as resource exhaustion can potentially affect other applications running on the same system infrastructure, creating cascading failures within the overall IT environment. This vulnerability particularly aligns with ATT&CK technique T1499 which covers resource exhaustion attacks targeting availability. Organizations running affected ColdFusion versions face significant operational risks including potential downtime, service degradation, and increased system maintenance requirements. The vulnerability demonstrates poor input validation and resource allocation practices within the ColdFusion application server, where insufficient bounds checking or resource monitoring mechanisms fail to prevent excessive consumption patterns. The lack of specific vector details in the original CVE description indicates that the vulnerability may involve multiple attack scenarios including but not limited to malformed requests, recursive processing, or inefficient memory handling during request processing. Security teams should consider implementing network-level protections such as rate limiting and traffic monitoring to detect and mitigate potential exploitation attempts while simultaneously planning and executing immediate patching operations to address the underlying resource management flaws. The vulnerability serves as a reminder of the critical importance of maintaining up-to-date application server software and implementing proper resource monitoring and alerting mechanisms to prevent unauthorized exploitation of resource consumption weaknesses. Organizations should also review their incident response procedures to ensure readiness for handling potential denial of service events that could result from this vulnerability. The remediation approach requires immediate deployment of Adobe's security updates and patches for both ColdFusion 10 and 11 versions, along with comprehensive testing to ensure that the patches do not introduce compatibility issues with existing applications. Additionally, system administrators should implement proactive monitoring of resource utilization patterns to detect anomalous consumption that might indicate exploitation attempts, as the vulnerability's unspecified nature makes traditional signature-based detection challenging.