CVE-2016-9597

Vulnerability

CVE-2016-9597 is a regression of CVE-2016-3705 in Red Hat JBoss Core Services (JBCS). The erratum RHSA-2016:2957, which shipped Apache HTTP 2.4.23, was intended to fix a stack overflow in libxml2 triggered by parsing a specially crafted XML file. However, the actual fix for libxml2 was not included, leaving the product vulnerable to the same stack overflow condition [1].

Exploitation

An attacker can exploit this vulnerability by providing a malicious XML file to an affected Red Hat JBoss Core Services instance. No authentication is required if the service accepts XML input from untrusted sources. The crafted XML triggers a stack overflow in libxml2 during parsing, causing the application to crash [1].

Impact

Successful exploitation results in a Denial of Service (DoS) due to a stack overflow. The attacker can cause the affected service to terminate, disrupting availability. No other CIA impacts (confidentiality or integrity) are described in the available references [1].

Mitigation

As of the latest reference (2018-08-30), no fix has been released for this regression in Red Hat JBoss Core Services. The bug status remained 'NEW' at that time [1]. Users should monitor Red Hat security advisories for an updated erratum that properly includes the libxml2 fix. No workaround is documented.