CVE-2024-34486

Vulnerability

CVE-2024-34486 resides in the OFPPacketQueue parser within parser.py of the Faucet SDN Ryu framework (version 4.34). The bug occurs when OFPQueueProp.len is set to 0; the parsing loop while length < len_ never increments its variables, causing an infinite loop [3].

Exploitation

An attacker can trigger this flaw by sending a specially crafted OpenFlow message to a Ryu controller. No authentication is required, and the attacker only needs network access to the controller's OpenFlow port (default 6633). The provided proof-of-concept payload demonstrates the infinite loop by exploiting a zero-length queue property [3].

Impact

Successful exploitation leads to a denial-of-service (DoS) condition: the Ryu controller becomes unresponsive, disrupting SDN network operations.

Mitigation

As noted in the project's repository, Ryu is no longer actively maintained [2]. Users are advised to migrate to the maintained fork os-ken. No patch is available for Ryu; the only mitigation is to avoid using the vulnerable version or to apply network-level filtering to block malicious OpenFlow messages.