CVE-2014-0231

CVE: CVE-2014-0231
CWE: 400
ipc:
  note: 
  answer: 
  question: |
    Did the feature that this vulnerability affected use inter-process
    communication? IPC includes OS signals, pipes, stdin/stdout, message
    passing, and clipboard. Writing to files that another program in this
    software system reads is another form of IPC.

    Answer should be boolean. Explain your answer
bugs: []
i18n:
  note: 
  answer: 
  instructions: |
    Was the feature impacted by this vulnerability about internationalization
    (i18n)? An internationalization feature is one that enables people from all
    over the world to use the system. This includes translations, locales,
    typography, unicode, or various other features.

    Answer should be boolean. Write a note about how you came to the conclusions
    you did.
repo: httpd
vccs:
- note: The vulnerability was introduced with the mod_cgid component (which lacked
    command timeout its introduction).
  commit: 9ca05a3a514cf399d604a33b37dbc18e4fcd886a
- note: 
  commit: 
fixes:
- note: Introduce a read timeout to prevent scripts from hanging too long
  commit: 41488e891d12eddcf21bb435d90ae71eda8d218a
- note: Introduced timeouts for scripts that don't read from stdin
  commit: c0be5abcd369a29528c9e9f3cc5b74753a3ec4a5
bounty:
  amt: 
  url: 
  announced: 
lessons:
  yagni:
    note: 
    applies: false
  question: |
    Are there any common lessons we have learned from class that apply to this
    vulnerability? In other words, could this vulnerability serve as an example
    of one of those lessons?

    Leave "applies" blank or put false if you did not see that lesson (you do
    not need to put a reason). Put "true" if you feel the lesson applies and put
    a quick explanation of how it applies.

    Don't feel the need to claim that ALL of these apply, but it's pretty likely
    that one or two of them apply.

    If you think of another lesson we covered in class that applies here, feel
    free to give it a small name and add one in the same format as these.
  serial_killer:
    note: 
    applies: false
  complex_inputs:
    note: This vulnerability depends on the fact that CGI script writers may not anticipate
      the impact of certain inputs. The complexity of the relationship between script
      inputs and execution time means that it may not be apparent to a CGI script
      writer whether their script will run without halting on all conditions.
    applies: true
  distrust_input:
    note: This vulnerability is centered around handling harmful input. The program
      trusts that it will receive CGI scripts which always terminate.
    applies: true
  least_privilege:
    note: 
    applies: false
  native_wrappers:
    note: 
    applies: false
  defense_in_depth:
    note: Timeouts are a layer of robustness underneath normal CGI input validation.
    applies: true
  secure_by_default:
    note: 
    applies: false
  environment_variables:
    note: 
    applies: false
  security_by_obscurity:
    note: 
    applies: false
  frameworks_are_optional:
    note: 
    applies: false
reviews: []
upvotes: 3
CWE_note: 
mistakes:
  answer: |-
    This is a particularly interesting case of finding a way to make the system fail gracefully. The issue - the process responsible for running CGI scripts hanging indefinitely - is an issue that occurs when a script fails to handle certain inputs properly. The failure to anticipate and handle this special case is what left open the opportunity for a DOS attack on the system.
    Lack of unit testing is probably the most clear mistake here. The unit test suite for the project as a whole is relatively sparse, and an issue like this (a rare failure case) can be difficult to anticipate without thorough testing.
  question: |
    In your opinion, after all of this research, what mistakes were made that
    led to this vulnerability? Coding mistakes? Design mistakes?
    Maintainability? Requirements? Miscommunications?

    Look at the CWE entry for this vulnerability and examine the mitigations
    they have written there. Are they doing those? Does the fix look proper?

    Use those questions to inspire your answer. Don't feel obligated to answer
    every one. Write a thoughtful entry here that those ing the software
    engineering industry would find interesting.
nickname: 
reported: 
announced: '2014-07-14'
published: 
subsystem:
  name: mod_cgid
  answer: mod_cgid, the CGI Daemon module
  question: |
    What subsystems was the mistake in?

    Look at the path of the source code files code that were fixed to get
    directory names. Look at comments in the code. Look at the bug reports how
    the bug report was tagged.
discovered:
  answer: |-
    Rainer Jung, a member of the Apache Software Foundation, discovered this vulnerability on June 16th 2014 and reported it to the Apache Security Team.
    Checked Sources NVD Apache HTTP Server 2.4 vulnerabilities ASF Buglist
  google: 
  contest: 
  question: |
    How was this vulnerability discovered?

    Go to the bug report and read the conversation to find out how this was
    originally found. Answer in longform below in "answer", fill in the date in
    YYYY-MM-DD, and then determine if the vulnerability was found by a Google
    employee (you can tell from their email address). If it's clear that the
    vulenrability was discovered by a contest, fill in the name there.

    The "automated" flag can be true, false, or nil.
    The "google" flag can be true, false, or nil.

    If there is no evidence as to how this vulnerability was found, then you may
    leave this part blank.
  automated: false
description: |-
  A CGI (Common Gateway Interface) is a protocol used by web servers that runs command-line interface scripts in response to client requests. Apache HTTP Server has a module "mod_cgid" which is responsible for running CGI scripts.
  CVE-2014-0231 was a vulnerability in Apache HTTP Server's mod_cgid module where users could create a denial of service attack by causing the process which ran these scripts to hang indefinitely. mod_cgid did not have any timeout feature. If an attacker found a request that caused one of a server's CGI scripts hosted in mod_cgid to halt, this would deny service to other users of the server's CGI scripts.
unit_tested:
  fix: false
  code: false
  answer: Unit testing for this project is fairly sparse. There is no reference to
    either generators ("generator" is the directory mod_cgid is under) or to mod_cgid
    itself in the test folder.
  question: |
    Were automated unit tests involved in this vulnerability?
    Was the original code unit tested, or not unit tested? Did the fix involve
    improving the automated tests?

    For the "code" answer below, look not only at the fix but the surrounding
    code near the fix and determine if and was there were unit tests involved
    for this module.

    For the "fix" answer below, check if the fix for the vulnerability involves
    adding or improving an automated test to ensure this doesn't happen again.
specification:
  answer: 
  answer_note: 
  instructions: |
    Is there mention of a violation of a specification? For example,
    an RFC specification, a protocol specification, or a requirements
    specification.

    Be sure to check all artifacts for this: bug report, security
    advisory, commit message, etc.

    The answer field should be boolean. In answer_note, please explain
    why you come to that conclusion.
curation_level: 1
CWE_instructions: |
  Please go to cwe.mitre.org and find the most specific, appropriate CWE entry
  that describes your vulnerability. (Tip: this may not be a good one to start
  with - spend time understanding this vulnerability before making your choice!)
autodiscoverable:
  answer: 
  answer_note: 
  instructions: |
    Is it plausible that a fully automated tool could have discovered
    this? These are tools that require little knowledge of the domain,
     e.g. automatic static analysis, compiler warnings, fuzzers.

    Examples for true answers: SQL injection, XSS, buffer overflow

    Examples for false: RFC violations, permissions issues, anything
    that requires the tool to be "aware" of the project's
    domain-specific requirements.

    The answer field should be boolean. In answer_note, please explain
    why you come to that conclusion.
yaml_instructions: 
bounty_instructions: |
  If you came across any indications that a bounty was paid out for this
  vulnerability, fill it out here. Or correct it if the information already here
  was wrong. Otherwise, leave it blank.
interesting_commits:
  commits:
  - note: This is a case where the the code was modified to fail gracefully by explicitly
      handling a Daemon Startup Error case that has been identified.
    commit: 3da7b6c2c74a05741823d6e3dcfacddb4f68839e
  - note: 
    commit: 
  question: |
    Are there any interesting commits between your VCC(s) and fix(es)?

    Write a brief (under 100 words) description of why you think this commit was
    interesting in light of the lessons learned from this vulnerability. Any
    emerging themes?
curated_instructions: |
  If you are manually editing this file, then you are "curating" it. Set the
  entry below to "true" as soon as you start. This will enable additional
  integrity checks on this file to make sure you fill everything out properly.
  If you are a student, we cannot accept your work as finished unless curated is
  set to true.
upvotes_instructions: |-
  For the first round, ignore this upvotes number.
  For the second round of reviewing, you will be giving a certain amount of upvotes to each vulnerability you see. Your peers will tell you how interesting they think this vulnerability is, and you'll add that to the upvotes score on your branch.
nickname_instructions: |
  A catchy name for this vulnerability that would draw attention it. If the
  report mentions a nickname, use that. Must be under 30 characters.
  Optional.
reported_instructions: |
  What date was the vulnerability reported to the security team? Look at the
  security bulletins and bug reports. It is not necessarily the same day that the
  CVE was created.  Leave blank if no date is given.
  Please enter your date in YYYY-MM-DD format.
announced_instructions: |
  Was there a date that this vulnerability was announced to the world? You can
  find this in changelogs, blogs, bug reports, or perhaps the CVE date. A good
  source for this is Chrome's Stable Release Channel
  (https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/).
  Please enter your date in YYYY-MM-DD format.
fixes_vcc_instructions: |
  Please put the commit hash in "commit" below (see my example in
  CVE-2011-3092.yml). Fixes and VCCs follow the same format.
published_instructions: |
  Is there a published fix or patch date for this vulnerability?
  Please enter your date in YYYY-MM-DD format.
description_instructions: |-
  You can get an initial description from the CVE entry on cve.mitre.org. These descriptions are a fine start, but they can be kind of jargony.
  Rewrite this description in your own words. Make it interesting and easy to read to anyone with some programming experience. We can always pull up the NVD description later to get more technical.
  Try to still be specific in your description, but remove Chromium-specific stuff. Remove references to versions, specific filenames, and other jargon that outsiders to Chromium would not understand. Technology like "regular expressions" is fine, and security phrases like "invalid write" are fine to keep too.