CVE-2018-10432 in Infinity
Summary
by MITRE
Pexip Infinity before 18 allows Remote Denial of Service (TLS handshakes in RTMP).
If you want to get best quality of vulnerability data, you may have to visit VulDB.
Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 09/25/2020
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2018-10432 affects Pexip Infinity versions prior to 18, presenting a remote denial of service condition specifically related to TLS handshakes within the RTMP protocol implementation. This flaw represents a critical security weakness that could be exploited by remote attackers to disrupt service availability for legitimate users. The vulnerability manifests during the establishment of secure communication channels through the RTMP protocol, which is commonly used for real-time multimedia streaming and communication services. The affected system fails to properly handle certain TLS handshake sequences, creating an opportunity for malicious actors to trigger system instability and service interruption.
The technical root cause of this vulnerability lies in the improper validation and handling of TLS handshake parameters within the RTMP protocol stack of the Pexip Infinity platform. When remote clients attempt to establish connections using RTMP with TLS encryption, the system does not adequately sanitize or process the handshake messages, allowing malformed or specially crafted handshake data to cause the application to crash or become unresponsive. This type of vulnerability falls under the category of improper input validation and resource management issues, which are commonly classified as CWE-20 for improper input validation and CWE-400 for unspecified resource management issues. The flaw specifically impacts the secure communication layer of the platform, making it particularly dangerous as it can be exploited without requiring authentication or elevated privileges.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple service disruption to potentially compromise the overall reliability and availability of the communication infrastructure. Organizations relying on Pexip Infinity for critical video conferencing, collaboration, or telephony services could experience significant downtime when exploited by malicious actors. The vulnerability affects the platform's ability to maintain stable connections and process legitimate requests, leading to cascading effects that may impact business continuity and user productivity. Attackers could leverage this weakness to repeatedly initiate connection attempts that cause the system to become unresponsive, effectively creating a denial of service condition that prevents legitimate users from accessing services. This vulnerability directly aligns with attack techniques described in the MITRE ATT&CK framework under the T1499 category for Network Denial of Service, where adversaries target network services to make them unavailable to intended users.
Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability require immediate patching of the Pexip Infinity platform to version 18 or later, which contains the necessary fixes for the TLS handshake handling. Organizations should implement network-level monitoring to detect unusual connection patterns or repeated handshake failures that may indicate exploitation attempts. Additionally, administrators should consider implementing rate limiting and connection throttling mechanisms to reduce the impact of potential exploitation attempts. The fix addresses the underlying code implementation issues in the RTMP protocol handling and ensures proper TLS handshake validation, preventing malformed data from causing system instability. Regular security assessments and vulnerability scanning should be conducted to identify similar weaknesses in the broader communication infrastructure, as this vulnerability demonstrates the importance of proper protocol implementation and validation in secure communication systems.