CVE-2018-14339 in Wireshark
Summary
by MITRE
In Wireshark 2.6.0 to 2.6.1, 2.4.0 to 2.4.7, and 2.2.0 to 2.2.15, the MMSE dissector could go into an infinite loop. This was addressed in epan/proto.c by adding offset and length validation.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 04/18/2023
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2018-14339 represents a critical denial of service flaw within Wireshark network protocol analyzer software. This issue affects multiple versions including 2.6.0 through 2.6.1, 2.4.0 through 2.4.7, and 2.2.0 through 2.2.15, demonstrating the widespread impact across different release branches of the software. The vulnerability specifically resides within the MMSE dissector component which is responsible for parsing and interpreting Multimedia Messaging Service Element protocol data. The flaw manifests as an infinite loop condition that occurs when processing specially crafted network packets, leading to complete system unresponsiveness and resource exhaustion.
The technical root cause of this vulnerability stems from inadequate input validation within the MMSE dissector implementation. When Wireshark processes network traffic containing MMSE protocol data, the dissector fails to properly validate the offset and length parameters associated with the protocol structure. This absence of validation allows maliciously formatted packets to trigger an infinite loop within the parsing routine, causing the software to consume excessive CPU resources and potentially crash the entire application. The vulnerability is classified as a CWE-835: Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition (Infinite Loop) under the Common Weakness Enumeration framework, which specifically addresses scenarios where loop termination conditions become unreachable due to improper input handling.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability poses significant risks to network security analysts and forensic investigators who rely on Wireshark for network traffic analysis. An attacker could exploit this flaw by crafting and transmitting specially formatted MMSE protocol packets to a victim running an affected version of Wireshark. The resulting infinite loop would cause the application to become unresponsive, potentially disrupting ongoing network analysis sessions and compromising the ability to investigate network incidents. This type of denial of service attack directly impacts the availability of critical network monitoring tools and could be particularly problematic in environments where continuous network monitoring is essential for security operations.
The remediation implemented in epan/proto.c addresses the core issue by introducing proper offset and length validation checks within the MMSE dissector. This fix ensures that all input parameters are validated before processing, preventing malformed data from triggering the infinite loop condition. The solution aligns with established security best practices for input validation and demonstrates the importance of proper boundary checking in protocol parsing implementations. Organizations should immediately update to patched versions of Wireshark to mitigate this vulnerability, as the infinite loop condition could be exploited in various attack scenarios including those targeting network security tools in enterprise environments. This vulnerability also highlights the broader category of protocol parsing vulnerabilities that fall under ATT&CK technique T1059.007 for Command and Scripting Interpreter, where improper input handling can lead to system resource exhaustion and denial of service conditions.