Cockpit Project cockpit base64 Header Parsing Denial of Service Vulnerability [CVE-2019-3804]

CVE Number – CVE-2019-3804

A vulnerability in cockpit could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition on a targeted system.

The vulnerability is due to the improper use of the glib base64 decode functionality by the affected software. A succesful attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a request that submits malicious, invalid base64 headers to a targeted system. An exploit could cause the affected software to crash, resulting in a DoS condition. 

The Cockpit Project has confirmed the vulnerability and released software updates.

Analysis

• To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker must send a request that submits malicious input to the targeted system, making exploitation more difficult in environments that restrict network access from untrusted sources.

Safeguards

• Administrators are advised to apply the appropriate updates.
  
  Administrators are advised to allow only trusted users to have network access.
  
  Administrators are advised to run both firewall and antivirus applications to minimize the potential of inbound and outbound threats.
  
  Administrators may consider using IP-based access control lists (ACLs) to allow only trusted systems to access the affected systems.
  
  Administrators can help protect affected systems from external attacks by using a solid firewall strategy.
  
  Administrators are advised to monitor affected systems.

Vendor Announcements

• The Cockpit Project has released a pull request at the following link: Pull Request #10819

Fixed Software

• The Cockpit Project has released software updates at the following link: ws: Fix bug parsing invalid base64 headers