CVE-2017-7705 in Wireshark
Summary
by MITRE
In Wireshark 2.2.0 to 2.2.5 and 2.0.0 to 2.0.11, the RPC over RDMA dissector could go into an infinite loop, triggered by packet injection or a malformed capture file. This was addressed in epan/dissectors/packet-rpcrdma.c by correctly checking for going beyond the maximum offset.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 11/29/2022
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2017-7705 represents a critical denial of service flaw within Wireshark's RPC over RDMA dissector functionality. This issue affected versions ranging from 2.2.0 through 2.2.5 and 2.0.0 through 2.0.11, creating a significant operational risk for network analysis and troubleshooting activities. The flaw manifested as an infinite loop condition that could be triggered through either packet injection attacks or by processing malformed capture files, fundamentally compromising the stability and reliability of the network protocol analyzer. The vulnerability operates at the dissector level within the Wireshark application, specifically targeting the RPC over RDMA protocol decoding mechanism that handles Remote Direct Memory Access communications.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from inadequate boundary checking within the packet-rpcrdma.c file, where the dissector failed to properly validate offset parameters during packet processing. This flaw created a condition where the dissector could continuously iterate beyond valid packet boundaries without proper termination conditions, leading to indefinite loop execution that consumed system resources and rendered the application unresponsive. The root cause aligns with CWE-835, which describes infinite loops or iterations without proper exit conditions, and demonstrates poor input validation practices in protocol dissector implementations. When malformed packets or capture files containing invalid offset values were processed, the dissector would attempt to access memory locations beyond the legitimate packet data boundaries, causing the loop to continue indefinitely until system resources were exhausted.
The operational impact of CVE-2017-7705 extends beyond simple application instability, creating potential security implications for network monitoring and forensic analysis environments. Network administrators and security professionals who rely on Wireshark for traffic analysis could experience complete service disruption when encountering maliciously crafted packets or corrupted capture files, effectively preventing network troubleshooting and incident response activities. The vulnerability could be exploited by attackers to perform denial of service attacks against systems running vulnerable versions of Wireshark, particularly in environments where automated packet capture and analysis processes are employed. This makes the flaw particularly dangerous in enterprise network monitoring scenarios where continuous traffic analysis is critical for security operations and network management functions.
The remediation implemented in epan/dissectors/packet-rpcrdma.c addressed the vulnerability by introducing proper offset validation checks that prevent the dissector from accessing memory beyond legitimate packet boundaries. This fix aligns with ATT&CK technique T1499.004, which involves network disruption through denial of service attacks, by ensuring that protocol dissectors properly validate input data before processing. Organizations should immediately upgrade to Wireshark versions that contain this patch to eliminate the risk of infinite loop conditions during packet analysis. Security teams should also implement network monitoring to detect potential exploitation attempts targeting this vulnerability and ensure that capture files from untrusted sources are properly validated before being processed by Wireshark applications. The fix demonstrates the importance of proper boundary checking in protocol analysis tools and reinforces the need for comprehensive input validation in network security applications.