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[Issue Resolved, Please Upgrade] libp2p DoS vulnerability from lack of resource management

High
p-shahi published GHSA-jvgw-gccv-q5p8 Dec 7, 2022

Package

cargo libp2p (Rust)

Affected versions

<= 0.45.0

Patched versions

0.45.1

Description

Impact

An attacker node can cause a victim node to allocate a large number of small memory chunks, which can ultimately lead to the victim’s process running out of memory and thus getting killed by its operating system. When executed continuously, this can lead to a denial of service attack, especially relevant on a larger scale when run against more than one node of a libp2p based network.

Details

In the original version of the attack, the malicious node would continuously open new streams on a single connection using a stream multiplexer that doesn’t provide sufficient back pressure (mplex or yamux). While allocations per stream might be considered small, they multiply with the number of streams and connections. It is easy to defend against this one attack, e.g. by setting a strict per connection stream limit and connection limit. But there are other variations of this attack, e.g. causing memory allocations by sending partial payloads on various protocol levels, forcing the victim to buffer the partial payload for a period of time or by tricking the victim into pre-allocating buffers for messages which are never sent by the attacker.

Patches

Users are advised to upgrade to libp2p v0.45.1 or above.

References

Please see our DoS Mitigation page for more information on how to incorporate mitigation strategies, monitor your application, and respond to attacks: https://docs.libp2p.io/reference/dos-mitigation/.

Please see the related disclosure for go-libp2p: GHSA-j7qp-mfxf-8xjw and js-libp2p: GHSA-f44q-634c-jvwv

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, please email us at security@libp2p.io.

Severity

High

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CVE ID

CVE-2022-23486

Weaknesses

No CWEs