TP-Link Tapo C200 v5 contains a stack-based buffer overflow flaw in RTSP authentication handling due to improper validation of Authorization header field lengths, which can be triggered by a crafted authentication request.
Successful exploitation causes the affected RTSP core service process to crash and triggers an automatic system reboot, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition. This prevents legitimate users from accessing the camera’s live video stream or management interface until the service restarts.
Weakness
A stack-based buffer overflow condition is a condition where the buffer being overwritten is allocated on the stack (i.e., is a local variable or, rarely, a parameter to a function).
Affected Software
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tapo_c200_firmware | Tp-link | 1.0.5-build_240327 (including) | 1.0.5-build_240327 (including) |
| Tapo_c200_firmware | Tp-link | 1.0.12-build_240527 (including) | 1.0.12-build_240527 (including) |
| Tapo_c200_firmware | Tp-link | 1.0.13-build_240619 (including) | 1.0.13-build_240619 (including) |
| Tapo_c200_firmware | Tp-link | 1.0.17-build_240806 (including) | 1.0.17-build_240806 (including) |
| Tapo_c200_firmware | Tp-link | 1.1.4-build_241219 (including) | 1.1.4-build_241219 (including) |
| Tapo_c200_firmware | Tp-link | 1.1.8-build_250310 (including) | 1.1.8-build_250310 (including) |
| Tapo_c200_firmware | Tp-link | 1.2.3-build_250610 (including) | 1.2.3-build_250610 (including) |
| Tapo_c200_firmware | Tp-link | 1.3.1-build_250910 (including) | 1.3.1-build_250910 (including) |
| Tapo_c200_firmware | Tp-link | 1.3.3-build_251119 (including) | 1.3.3-build_251119 (including) |
| Tapo_c200_firmware | Tp-link | 1.3.5-build_260228 (including) | 1.3.5-build_260228 (including) |
Potential Mitigations
- Use automatic buffer overflow detection mechanisms that are offered by certain compilers or compiler extensions. Examples include: the Microsoft Visual Studio /GS flag, Fedora/Red Hat FORTIFY_SOURCE GCC flag, StackGuard, and ProPolice, which provide various mechanisms including canary-based detection and range/index checking.
- D3-SFCV (Stack Frame Canary Validation) from D3FEND [REF-1334] discusses canary-based detection in detail.
- Run or compile the software using features or extensions that randomly arrange the positions of a program’s executable and libraries in memory. Because this makes the addresses unpredictable, it can prevent an attacker from reliably jumping to exploitable code.
- Examples include Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) [REF-58] [REF-60] and Position-Independent Executables (PIE) [REF-64]. Imported modules may be similarly realigned if their default memory addresses conflict with other modules, in a process known as “rebasing” (for Windows) and “prelinking” (for Linux) [REF-1332] using randomly generated addresses. ASLR for libraries cannot be used in conjunction with prelink since it would require relocating the libraries at run-time, defeating the whole purpose of prelinking.
- For more information on these techniques see D3-SAOR (Segment Address Offset Randomization) from D3FEND [REF-1335].