Executive brief
tcpdump, a widely used tool for monitoring and analyzing network traffic, is vulnerable to a memory corruption flaw. By sending specially crafted network packets or providing a malicious capture file, an attacker could cause the application to crash or potentially execute unauthorized code. This could lead to a complete system compromise or a disruption of network monitoring operations.
Technical details
A buffer overflow vulnerability exists in the IP parser of tcpdump versions prior to 4.9.0, specifically within multiple functions in the print-ip.c source file. The flaw is triggered during the decoding of IP protocol headers. A remote, unauthenticated attacker can exploit this by sending specially crafted packets to a network segment where tcpdump is performing live capture, or by tricking a user into opening a malicious pcap file. Successful exploitation can result in a denial of service (application crash) or the execution of arbitrary code with the privileges of the tcpdump process. The issue is addressed in version 4.9.0.
Affected products
- tcpdump tcpdump before 4.9.0
Timeline
- 2017-01-27: advisory: NVD publication date
- 2017-01-29: patched: Debian released fixed version 4.9.0-1