CVE-2020-13574 in gSOAP
Summary
by MITRE • 02/11/2021
A denial-of-service vulnerability exists in the WS-Security plugin functionality of Genivia gSOAP 2.8.107. A specially crafted SOAP request can lead to denial of service. An attacker can send an HTTP request to trigger this vulnerability.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 02/27/2021
The CVE-2020-13574 vulnerability represents a critical denial-of-service flaw within the WS-Security plugin of Genivia gSOAP version 2.8.107. This vulnerability specifically targets the web services security functionality that enables secure communication through SOAP protocols. The gSOAP toolkit serves as a comprehensive web services toolkit that supports various security mechanisms including WS-Security, making it a critical component in enterprise web service implementations. The vulnerability manifests when the system processes specially crafted SOAP requests that exploit weaknesses in the WS-Security plugin's request handling mechanisms.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from inadequate input validation within the WS-Security plugin's processing logic. When the system receives an HTTP request containing malformed or maliciously constructed SOAP messages, the WS-Security plugin fails to properly sanitize or validate the incoming data before processing. This lack of proper validation allows an attacker to craft requests that cause the plugin to enter an infinite loop, consume excessive system resources, or trigger unexpected application behavior that results in service unavailability. The vulnerability is particularly concerning because it operates at the protocol level where security features are expected to provide robust protection rather than create entry points for exploitation.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability creates significant risks for organizations relying on gSOAP-based web services, particularly those implementing WS-Security for enterprise communication. The impact extends beyond simple service disruption as it can affect business continuity and customer access to critical services. Attackers can leverage this vulnerability to perform sustained denial-of-service attacks against web services, potentially causing cascading failures in integrated systems that depend on these services. The attack vector is particularly dangerous because it requires minimal specialized knowledge to exploit, making it accessible to a wide range of threat actors. The vulnerability affects systems where gSOAP 2.8.107 is deployed with WS-Security enabled, which includes numerous enterprise applications, healthcare systems, financial services, and government platforms that rely on secure web service communication.
Organizations should immediately implement mitigations including upgrading to patched versions of gSOAP, implementing network-level protections such as rate limiting and request filtering, and deploying intrusion detection systems to monitor for suspicious SOAP request patterns. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-400, which covers "Uncontrolled Resource Consumption" and represents a classic denial-of-service scenario where attacker-controlled input leads to resource exhaustion. From an ATT&CK framework perspective, this vulnerability maps to technique T1499.004 for "Endpoint Denial of Service" and potentially T1595.001 for "Network Denial of Service" depending on the attack implementation. Additionally, organizations should consider implementing web application firewalls that can detect and block malformed SOAP requests before they reach the vulnerable plugin components. The remediation process should include comprehensive testing of patched versions to ensure that the upgrade does not introduce regressions in legitimate functionality while maintaining the security enhancements needed to protect against this specific vulnerability.