CVE-2018-7580 in Hue
Summary
by MITRE • 12/22/2020
Philips Hue is vulnerable to a Denial of Service attack. Sending a SYN flood on port tcp/80 will freeze Philips Hue's hub and it will stop responding. The "hub" will stop operating and be frozen until the flood stops. During the flood, the user won't be able to turn on/off the lights, and all of the hub's functionality will be unresponsive. The cloud service also won't work with the hub.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 09/02/2026
The Philips Hue smart lighting ecosystem relies heavily on a central bridge device that manages communication between physical light bulbs and user interfaces via mobile applications or web dashboards. This architecture introduces specific network-level vulnerabilities, particularly concerning how the hub handles incoming connection requests. A critical flaw exists in the implementation of the TCP stack within the hub's firmware, specifically regarding its handling of SYN packets on port tcp/80. When an attacker sends a high volume of SYN flood traffic to this port, the device fails to properly manage or discard these incomplete handshake attempts. Instead of dropping excess requests after reaching a threshold, the hub accumulates them in its connection table until it exhausts available memory and processing resources. This resource exhaustion leads directly to a Denial of Service condition where the entire system becomes unresponsive.
From a technical perspective, this vulnerability represents a classic failure in stateful packet inspection or rate limiting mechanisms within embedded systems firmware. The hub is designed to accept HTTP connections for local control, but it lacks robust safeguards against volumetric attacks targeting its web server interface. By flooding port 80 with SYN packets, an attacker can trigger a resource exhaustion scenario that freezes the operating system of the bridge. This behavior aligns closely with CWE-400, which describes Uncontrolled Resource Consumption, as well as CWE-770, Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling. The inability to limit concurrent connections allows malicious actors to disrupt service availability without needing authentication credentials, making this a significant security risk for users who rely on the system for home automation and lighting control.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is immediate and total within the local network environment. During an active SYN flood attack, the Philips Hue hub ceases all normal operations. Users are unable to toggle lights on or off through any connected interface, including mobile apps that communicate locally with the bridge. Furthermore, because the hub's internal processes are frozen by the overwhelming number of pending connections, it cannot maintain its link to the cloud services provided by Philips. This means that remote control features also fail, as the device is effectively offline from both local and external perspectives. The only resolution for this state is typically a physical power cycle or waiting until the flood subsides and the hub's connection table clears naturally, which may take considerable time depending on the firmware implementation of timeout mechanisms.
To mitigate this risk, users should consider network segmentation strategies that isolate IoT devices from general-purpose networks where potential attackers might reside. Placing the Philips Hue bridge in a separate VLAN with strict firewall rules can prevent unauthorized access to port 80 and limit exposure to external threats. Additionally, enabling SYN cookies if supported by any upstream router or gateway can help mitigate TCP-based denial of service attacks at the network perimeter. For long-term security improvements, users should ensure their hub firmware is updated to the latest version provided by Philips, as vendors often patch such resource management flaws in subsequent releases. Until patches are applied, monitoring local network traffic for abnormal spikes in SYN packets directed at port 80 can provide early detection of an ongoing attack attempt. This vulnerability highlights the importance of applying ATT&CK technique T1498, Network Denial of Service, to threat modeling exercises involving smart home infrastructure and emphasizes the need for resilient design principles in IoT device firmware development.