CVE-2019-3552 in Thrift
Summary
by MITRE
C++ Facebook Thrift servers (using cpp2) would not error upon receiving messages with containers of fields of unknown type. As a result, malicious clients could send short messages which would take a long time for the server to parse, potentially leading to denial of service. This issue affects Facebook Thrift prior to v2019.02.18.00.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 09/12/2023
The vulnerability described in CVE-2019-3552 represents a significant denial of service weakness within Facebook Thrift server implementations that utilize the cpp2 protocol. This flaw specifically impacts servers processing messages containing containers with fields of unknown type, creating a scenario where malicious actors can exploit the parsing behavior to consume excessive computational resources. The vulnerability stems from the server's failure to properly validate message structures during deserialization, allowing malformed input to trigger inefficient processing paths that can consume substantial processing time.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability involves the cpp2 protocol's handling of serialized data structures where unknown field types within containers are not properly rejected or handled with appropriate error conditions. When a malicious client sends carefully crafted short messages containing containers with unknown field types, the server's parser enters into inefficient processing loops that can take considerable time to complete. This behavior creates a resource exhaustion scenario where legitimate requests may be delayed or blocked while the server processes these malformed messages. The issue is particularly concerning because the attack requires only small message payloads while generating disproportionate processing overhead, making it an effective denial of service vector.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability creates a substantial risk for services relying on Facebook Thrift cpp2 implementations, as it allows attackers to consume server resources without requiring extensive computational power or network bandwidth. The attack can be executed remotely with minimal resources, making it particularly dangerous in production environments where service availability is critical. Organizations using affected versions of Facebook Thrift may experience degraded service performance, increased latency, or complete service unavailability during attack periods. The vulnerability also demonstrates poor input validation practices within the serialization framework, highlighting the importance of robust parsing and validation mechanisms in distributed systems.
Security practitioners should note that this vulnerability aligns with CWE-400, which addresses unspecified errors in resource management, and relates to ATT&CK technique T1499.004 for network denial of service attacks. The flaw essentially creates a resource exhaustion condition through inefficient parsing rather than direct network flooding, making it a subtle but effective attack vector. Organizations should immediately update to Facebook Thrift version v2019.02.18.00 or later to remediate this issue. Additional mitigations include implementing rate limiting on incoming requests, deploying intrusion detection systems to monitor for unusual parsing patterns, and configuring server-side timeouts to prevent indefinite processing of malformed messages. The vulnerability also underscores the importance of proper serialization protocol validation and the need for comprehensive testing of edge cases in distributed system components.