CVE-2024-28084 in Wireless Daemon
Summary
by MITRE • 03/04/2024
p2putil.c in iNet wireless daemon (IWD) through 2.15 allows attackers to cause a denial of service (daemon crash) or possibly have unspecified other impact because of initialization issues in situations where parsing of advertised service information fails.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 01/08/2025
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2024-28084 affects the iNet wireless daemon (IWD) version 2.15 and earlier, specifically within the p2putil.c component responsible for handling peer-to-peer wireless utility functions. This flaw represents a critical security issue that can be exploited to cause daemon crashes or potentially lead to more severe consequences through improper handling of wireless service advertisement parsing failures. The vulnerability arises from inadequate initialization procedures when the daemon encounters malformed or unexpected service information during wireless network operations.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from insufficient error handling and initialization routines within the peer-to-peer wireless utility code. When the iwd daemon attempts to parse advertised service information from wireless networks, particularly in peer-to-peer configurations, the p2putil.c module fails to properly initialize memory structures or validate input data before processing. This initialization failure creates exploitable conditions where malformed service advertisements can trigger memory corruption or undefined behavior within the daemon process. The vulnerability manifests when the parsing routine encounters unexpected data formats or incomplete service information structures that were not adequately accounted for during the initialization phase.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability presents significant risks to wireless network infrastructure and device availability. An attacker positioned within range of affected wireless networks can exploit this flaw to cause the iwd daemon to crash, resulting in complete denial of wireless service functionality for devices relying on this wireless daemon. The daemon crash can occur without requiring authentication or privileged access, making it particularly dangerous in environments where wireless connectivity is critical for operations. Additionally, the unspecified other impacts suggest potential for more severe consequences including privilege escalation or arbitrary code execution, though these remain unconfirmed in the current vulnerability assessment.
The attack surface for this vulnerability encompasses any system running iwd version 2.15 or earlier that supports peer-to-peer wireless functionality. This includes various Linux distributions and embedded systems that utilize IWD for wireless management, particularly those implementing wireless local area network (WLAN) operations in enterprise, residential, or industrial environments. The vulnerability affects both client and access point configurations that utilize peer-to-peer wireless capabilities, creating widespread exposure across different deployment scenarios.
Mitigation strategies should prioritize immediate patching of affected systems with the latest IWD versions that contain fixes for the initialization and parsing issues in p2putil.c. System administrators should implement network monitoring to detect potential exploitation attempts through abnormal daemon behavior or wireless service disruptions. Additionally, network segmentation and access control measures can limit the impact of successful exploitation attempts by restricting wireless network access to authenticated and authorized devices only. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-252, which addresses "Unchecked Return Value," and may also relate to CWE-691, "Insufficient Control Flow Management," as the daemon fails to properly handle exceptional conditions during service advertisement parsing operations. From an ATT&CK framework perspective, this vulnerability could be categorized under T1499.004 for "Endpoint Denial of Service" and potentially T1068 for "Exploitation for Privilege Escalation" if the unspecified impacts include code execution capabilities. Organizations should also consider implementing intrusion detection systems that can identify patterns consistent with wireless daemon crash attempts or malformed service advertisement traffic that could indicate exploitation attempts.