Overview
CVE-2025-64344 is a high-severity vulnerability affecting Suricata, a powerful network Intrusion Detection System (IDS), Intrusion Prevention System (IPS), and Network Security Monitoring (NSM) engine. This vulnerability, discovered in versions prior to 7.0.13 and 8.0.2, can lead to a stack overflow when processing large buffers within Lua scripts. This blog post details the vulnerability, its impact, and provides guidance on mitigation and patching.
Technical Details
The vulnerability stems from how Suricata handles large buffers passed to Lua scripts. Specifically, when Lua rules or output scripts are used and a large buffer is processed, the potential exists for a stack overflow. This is particularly relevant when rules pass substantial data to Lua scripts for analysis or processing. The vulnerability is triggered when working with large buffers that exceed the available stack space.
CVSS Analysis
- CVE ID: CVE-2025-64344
- Severity: HIGH
- CVSS Score: 7.5
A CVSS score of 7.5 indicates a high severity vulnerability. While specific exploit details may vary, the potential for a stack overflow to lead to denial of service (DoS) or potentially arbitrary code execution makes this a significant security concern.
Possible Impact
The exploitation of CVE-2025-64344 can have serious consequences:
- Denial of Service (DoS): A successful exploit could cause Suricata to crash, disrupting network monitoring and security operations.
- Potential Code Execution: In some scenarios, a stack overflow can be leveraged to execute arbitrary code on the affected system, leading to complete system compromise. This is highly dependent on system architecture and exploit techniques.
- Data Leakage: In cases where the overflow affects Lua output scripts, sensitive information could be exposed.
Mitigation and Patch Steps
The recommended course of action is to upgrade to the patched versions of Suricata. If upgrading is not immediately possible, the following workarounds can be implemented:
- Upgrade Suricata: Upgrade to Suricata version 7.0.13 or 8.0.2 or later. These versions contain the necessary patches to address the vulnerability.
- Disable Lua Scripts: As a temporary workaround, disable Lua rules and output scripts. This will prevent the vulnerability from being triggered.
- Enforce Buffer Limits: Ensure that limits such as
stream.depth.reassemblyand HTTP response body limits (response-body-limit) are set to less than half the stack size. This will help prevent large buffers from being processed by Lua scripts. Carefully consider the impact on rule effectiveness when adjusting these limits.
