Mooncake transfer engine through 0.3.13.post1 contains a denial of service vulnerability that allows unauthenticated remote attackers to block the handshake daemon by never reading replies. Attackers can send a Metadata request to the handshake RPC port and stall SocketHandShakePlugins single listener thread in writeFully(), breaking all subsequent handshakes, metadata fetches, notify and probe requests.
Weakness
The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.
Potential Mitigations
Mitigation of resource exhaustion attacks requires that the target system either:
The first of these solutions is an issue in itself though, since it may allow attackers to prevent the use of the system by a particular valid user. If the attacker impersonates the valid user, they may be able to prevent the user from accessing the server in question.
The second solution is simply difficult to effectively institute – and even when properly done, it does not provide a full solution. It simply makes the attack require more resources on the part of the attacker.
Related Attack Patterns
- https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/147.html
- https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/227.html
- https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/492.html
References
- https://github.com/kvcache-ai/Mooncake
- https://github.com/kvcache-ai/Mooncake/blob/719735896c86b56fabec6cf3e825fb2ea640597a/mooncake-transfer-engine/src/transfer_metadata_plugin.cpp#L730-L803
- https://github.com/kvcache-ai/Mooncake/issues/4443
- https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/mooncake-transfer-engine-through-0.3.13-post1-denial-of-service-via-p2p-handshake-daemon-response-write
- https://github.com/kvcache-ai/Mooncake/issues/4443