CVE-2024-7254

Description

A flaw was found in Protocol Buffers (protobuf). This issue can allows an attacker to cause a StackOverflow via parsing untrusted Protocol Buffers data containing arbitrarily nested SGROUP tags, leading to unbounded recursion.

Statement

This issue represents a significant severity risk because unbounded recursion in Protocol Buffers parsing can be exploited to trigger stack overflows, leading to Denial of Service (DoS). When parsers, such as DiscardUnknownFieldsParser or the Java Protobuf Lite parser, encounter arbitrarily nested groups or deeply recursive map fields, the lack of recursion depth limits can result in uncontrolled stack growth. Attackers can craft malicious protobuf messages that deliberately exceed the stack's capacity, causing the application to crash or become unresponsive.

The protobuf package as shipped in RHEL does not include the affected java or kotlin bindings, therefore RHEL is Not Affected.

Mitigation

Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base or stability.

Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details

Info alert:Important note

CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).

CVSS v3 Score Breakdown

Red HatNVDcve.org
Base Score7.57.5N/A
Attack VectorNetworkNetworkN/A
Attack ComplexityLowLowN/A
Privileges RequiredNoneNoneN/A
User InteractionNoneNoneN/A
ScopeUnchangedUnchangedN/A
ConfidentialityNoneNoneN/A
Integrity ImpactNoneNoneN/A
Availability ImpactHighHighN/A

Vector

Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

NVD: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Understanding the Weakness (CWE)

Availability

Technical Impact: DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU); DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory); DoS: Resource Consumption (Other)

When allocating resources without limits, an attacker could prevent other systems, applications, or processes from accessing the same type of resource. It can be easy for an attacker to consume many resources by rapidly making many requests or causing larger resources to be used than is needed.

Frequently Asked Questions

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