CVE-2012-3954: Memory Leaks Found in ISC DHCP

Title:  Memory Leaks Found In ISC DHCP

Summary:

Two memory leaks have been found and fixed in ISC DHCP. Both are reproducible when running in DHCPv6 mode (with the -6 command-line argument.) The first leak is confirmed to only affect servers operating in DHCPv6 mode, but based on initial code analysis the second may theoretically affect DHCPv4 servers (though this has not been demonstrated.)

CVE:  CVE-2012-3954

Document Version:  2.1

Posting date:  24 July 2012

Program Impacted:  ISC DHCP 4

Versions affected:  4.1.x, 4.2.x

Severity:  Medium

Exploitable:  From networks permitted to send requests to the DHCP server.

Description:

ISC has discovered and fixed two memory leaks in the DHCP code. One of the leaks only affects servers running in DHCPv6 mode. The other is known to affect a server running in DHCPv6 mode but could potentially occur on servers running in DHCPv4 mode as well. In both cases the server can leak a small amount of memory while processing messages. The amount leaked per iteration is small and the leak will not cause problems in many cases. However on a server that is run for a long period without re-starting or a server handling an extraordinary amount of traffic from the clients the leak could consume all memory available to the DHCP server process, preventing further operation by the DHCP server process and potentially interfering with other services hosted on the same server hardware.

Note: Under ISC's disclosure policy, this issue would not normally require an advisory but we are issuing one in this case in coordination with other security issues being disclosed at this time. DHCP 3.1-ESV has not been tested for this issue but examination of the code suggests that it is potentially vulnerable. All versions of ISC DHCP 3 are currently beyond the end of their support from ISC and we will not be releasing patches for these "End of Life" (EOL) versions.

CVSS Score:  3.3

CVSS Equation:  (AV:A/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P)

For more information on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System and to obtain your specific environmental score please visit:http://nvd.nist.gov/cvss.cfm?calculator&adv&version=2&vector=(AV:A/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P)

Workarounds:

Restarting the server at periodic intervals will address the problem sufficiently in most operational environments. Where DHCP traffic is permitted from hosts not under the control of the network operator (e.g. open or semi-public networks) upgrading is more strongly recommended.

Solution:  Upgrade to ISC DHCP 4.1-ESV-R6 or 4.2.4-P1 

Download 4.2.4-P1 or 4.1-ESV-R6 from www.isc.org/downloads/all

Exploit Status:  No known active exploits

Acknowledgment:  ISC would like to thank Glen Eustace of Massey University, New Zealand for finding this issue.

Document Revision History:

1.0 - 11 July, 2012 - Phase 1 contacted  1.1 - 17 July, 2012. - Phase 1 re-issued, re-released patch with additional code 1.2 - 23 July, 2012 - Phase 2 & 3 notification sent  2.0 - 24 July, 2012 - Phase 4-Public release 2.1 - 30 July, 2012 - Added Chinese translation

References:

- Do you have Questions?  Questions regarding this advisory should go to security-officer@isc.org.

- ISC Security Vulnerability Disclosure Policy:  Details of our current security advisory policy and practice can be found here:https://www.isc.org/security-vulnerability-disclosure-policy

- Japanese Translation:  https://kb.isc.org/article/AA-00754 - Spanish Translation :  https://kb.isc.org/article/AA-00749

- German Translation :  https://kb.isc.org/article/AA-00738

- Chinese Translation :  https://kb.isc.org/article/AA-00760

If you'd like more information on our Forum or BIND/DHCP support please visit www.isc.org/software/guild or www.isc.org/support

Legal Disclaimer:

Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) is providing this notice on an "AS IS" basis. No warranty or guarantee of any kind is expressed in this notice and none should be inferred. ISC expressly excludes and disclaims any warranties regarding this notice or materials referred to in this notice, including, without limitation, any inferred warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, absence of hidden defects, or of non-infringement. Your use of, or reliance on, this notice or materials referred to in this notice is at your own risk. ISC may change this notice at any time.

A stand-alone copy or paraphrase of the text of this document that omits the distribution URL in the following section is an uncontrolled copy. Uncontrolled copies may lack important information, be out of date, or contain factual errors.

© 2001-2018 Internet Systems Consortium For assistance with problems and questions for which you have not been able to find an answer in our Knowledge Base, we recommend searching our community mailing list archives and/or posting your question there (you will need to register there first for your posts to be accepted). The bind-users and the dhcp-users lists particularly have a long-standing and active membership. ISC relies on the financial support of the community to fund the development of its open source software products. If you would like to support future product evolution and maintenance as well having peace of mind knowing that our team of experts are poised to provide you with individual technical assistance whenever you call upon them, then please consider our Professional Subscription Support services - details can be found on our main website.