CVE-2017-17166 in DP300
Summary
by MITRE
Huawei DP300 V500R002C00, Secospace USG6300 V500R001C00, V500R001C20, V500R001C30, V500R001C50, Secospace USG6500 V500R001C00, V500R001C20, V500R001C30, V500R001C50, Secospace USG6600 V500R001C00, V500R001C20, V500R001C30, V500R001C50, TP3206 V100R002C00, VP9660 V500R002C00, V500R002C10 have a resource exhaustion vulnerability. The software does not process certain field of H.323 message properly, a remote unauthenticated attacker could send crafted H.323 message to the device, successful exploit could cause certain service unavailable since the stack memory is exhausted.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 02/08/2023
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2017-17166 affects multiple Huawei network security devices including DP300 series, Secospace USG firewalls, TP3206 video conferencing equipment, and VP9660 video processing units. This represents a critical resource exhaustion flaw that impacts the availability of these security appliances. The vulnerability specifically resides in the H.323 protocol processing functionality where the software fails to properly handle certain fields within H.323 messages, creating a pathway for malicious exploitation that can lead to complete service disruption.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from improper input validation and memory management within the H.323 message processing engine. When the affected devices receive crafted H.323 messages containing malformed fields, the system's memory allocation routines become overwhelmed through repeated processing attempts or recursive memory consumption patterns. This particular flaw aligns with CWE-400, which categorizes resource exhaustion vulnerabilities where systems fail to properly manage computational resources. The vulnerability operates at the network protocol level, specifically targeting the H.323 signaling protocol commonly used in voice over IP communications, making it particularly dangerous for enterprise communication infrastructures.
Operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple service disruption to encompass potential business continuity risks for organizations relying on these security appliances. Remote unauthenticated attackers can exploit this weakness without requiring any prior credentials or privileged access, making the attack surface extremely broad. Successful exploitation leads to complete service unavailability as the device's stack memory becomes exhausted, effectively rendering the security appliance non-functional until manual intervention or device reboot occurs. This vulnerability directly maps to ATT&CK technique T1499.004, which covers network denial of service attacks targeting network infrastructure components.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2017-17166 should prioritize immediate firmware updates from Huawei to address the underlying memory handling flaws in the H.323 processing modules. Organizations should implement network segmentation to limit exposure of affected devices to untrusted networks and consider disabling H.323 protocol processing entirely if not required for business operations. Additional protective measures include implementing network access controls to restrict H.323 traffic to trusted sources only, deploying intrusion detection systems capable of identifying malformed H.323 messages, and establishing monitoring procedures to detect unusual memory consumption patterns. The vulnerability's classification as a remote code execution risk underscores the importance of proactive patch management and network security hygiene practices to prevent unauthorized exploitation attempts that could compromise critical infrastructure availability.