CVE-2015-6812 in IP.Board
Summary
by MITRE
Invision Power Services IPS Community Suite (aka Invision Power Board, IPB, or Power Board) before 4.0.12.1 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (loop and memory consumption) via a crafted URL.
Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.
Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 11/27/2017
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2015-6812 affects the Invision Power Services IPS Community Suite, a widely used web-based forum software platform that serves thousands of websites globally. This particular flaw resides within the application's handling of specially crafted URLs that trigger infinite loops and excessive memory consumption patterns. The vulnerability impacts versions prior to 4.0.12.1, representing a critical security gap that could severely disrupt service availability for organizations relying on this community management platform.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from insufficient input validation and sanitization within the URL processing mechanism of the IPS Community Suite. When a remote attacker crafts a malicious URL containing specific parameters or sequences, the application fails to properly validate these inputs and instead enters into an infinite loop or consumes excessive memory resources during processing. This occurs due to inadequate boundary checks and loop termination conditions within the URL routing and parameter parsing components. The flaw operates at the application layer and does not require authentication, making it particularly dangerous as it can be exploited by anyone with access to the vulnerable system.
From an operational impact perspective, this vulnerability creates significant risks for organizations using the affected software versions. The denial of service condition can render entire forum instances unavailable to legitimate users, potentially affecting thousands of community members and business operations. The memory consumption aspect can lead to system crashes or performance degradation that may require manual intervention to restore normal operations. Additionally, the infinite loop behavior can cause continuous resource exhaustion, potentially affecting other services running on the same infrastructure and creating cascading failures within larger network environments.
Organizations should immediately implement the vendor-provided patch or upgrade to version 4.0.12.1 or later to remediate this vulnerability. Network administrators should also consider implementing URL filtering and rate limiting mechanisms as additional defensive measures. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-400, which covers "Uncontrolled Resource Consumption," and demonstrates characteristics consistent with ATT&CK technique T1499.004, "Endpoint Denial of Service," as it targets application-level resources to cause service disruption. Security teams should monitor for exploitation attempts and consider implementing intrusion detection systems to identify malicious URL patterns that may indicate attempted exploitation of this vulnerability.