CVE-2022-20682 - NULL Pointer Dereference

Severity

86%

Complexity

39%

Confidentiality

66%

A vulnerability in the Control and Provisioning of Wireless Access Points (CAPWAP) protocol processing of Cisco IOS XE Wireless Controller Software for the Catalyst 9000 Family could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition on an affected device. This vulnerability is due to inadequate input validation of incoming CAPWAP packets encapsulating multicast DNS (mDNS) queries. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by connecting to a wireless network and sending a crafted mDNS query, which would flow through and be processed by the wireless controller. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause the affected device to crash and reload, resulting in a DoS condition.

CVSS 3.1 Base Score 8.6. CVSS Attack Vector: network. CVSS Attack Complexity: low. CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H).

CVSS 2.0 Base Score 7.8. CVSS Attack Vector: network. CVSS Attack Complexity: low. CVSS Vector: (AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C).

Demo Examples

NULL Pointer Dereference

CWE-476

While there are no complete fixes aside from conscientious programming, the following steps will go a long way to ensure that NULL pointer dereferences do not occur.


               
}
/* make use of pointer1 *//* ... */

If you are working with a multithreaded or otherwise asynchronous environment, ensure that proper locking APIs are used to lock before the if statement; and unlock when it has finished.

NULL Pointer Dereference

CWE-476

This example takes an IP address from a user, verifies that it is well formed and then looks up the hostname and copies it into a buffer.


               
}
strcpy(hostname, hp->h_name);/*routine that ensures user_supplied_addr is in the right format for conversion */

If an attacker provides an address that appears to be well-formed, but the address does not resolve to a hostname, then the call to gethostbyaddr() will return NULL. Since the code does not check the return value from gethostbyaddr (CWE-252), a NULL pointer dereference would then occur in the call to strcpy().

Note that this example is also vulnerable to a buffer overflow (see CWE-119).

NULL Pointer Dereference

CWE-476

In the following code, the programmer assumes that the system always has a property named "cmd" defined. If an attacker can control the program's environment so that "cmd" is not defined, the program throws a NULL pointer exception when it attempts to call the trim() method.


               
cmd = cmd.trim();

NULL Pointer Dereference

CWE-476

This application has registered to handle a URL when sent an intent:


               
}......
}
}
int length = URL.length();
...

The application assumes the URL will always be included in the intent. When the URL is not present, the call to getStringExtra() will return null, thus causing a null pointer exception when length() is called.

Overview

Type

Cisco IOS XE

First reported 3 years ago

2022-04-15 15:15:00

Last updated 3 years ago

2022-04-26 18:00:00

Affected Software

Cisco IOS XE 16.11.1

16.11.1

Cisco IOS XE 16.12.1

16.12.1

Cisco IOS XE 16.12.1Y

16.12.1y

Cisco IOS XE 16.12.2

16.12.2

Cisco IOS XE 16.12.2A

16.12.2a

Cisco IOS XE 16.12.4

16.12.4

Cisco IOS XE 17.1.1

17.1.1

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