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OpenswanApplication · Xelerance

CVE-2014-2037

MEDIUM · 5.0 CVSS v2.0 Published 2014-11-26
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
59/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
Openswan 2.6.40 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (NULL pointer dereference and IKE daemon restart) via IKEv2 packets that lack expected payloads. NOTE: this vulnerability exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE 2013-6466.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · high confidence

Openswan 2.6.40 contains a NULL pointer dereference vulnerability in its IKE daemon when processing IKEv2 packets that lack expected payloads, causing the daemon to crash and restart. This is a denial-of-service vulnerability stemming from an incomplete fix for the earlier CVE-2013-6466.

MitigationUpdate Openswan to a version that includes the complete fix for this vulnerability, or apply vendor-supplied patches to address the missing payload validation.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
OpenswanApplication
Affected:= 2.6.40

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Authentication
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
Partial

AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify Openswan installation and version
    Run 'rpm -q openswan' or 'ipsec --version' to find the installed Openswan package version
    Affected if The installed version is exactly 2.6.40
  2. Verify IKE daemon is running
    Check for 'pluto' or 'iked' process using 'ps aux | grep -i pluto' or 'systemctl status ipsec'
    Affected if The IKE daemon (pluto) is running and processing IKE connections
  3. Confirm IKEv2 protocol is enabled
    Inspect /etc/ipsec.conf and look for 'ikev2=always' or 'ikev2=permit' in the config, or check for IKEv2 connection definitions
    Affected if IKEv2 is enabled or configured in the ipsec.conf file
  4. Check for recent daemon restarts
    Review system logs (journalctl -u ipsec or /var/log/daemon.log) for Pluto daemon crash/restart events
    Affected if The IKE daemon has crashed and restarted unexpectedly, especially when receiving malformed IKEv2 packets

You are affected if Openswan version 2.6.40 is installed AND the IKE daemon is running with IKEv2 enabled, as the NULL pointer dereference occurs when processing IKEv2 packets lacking expected payloads.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Update Openswan to a version that includes the complete fix for this vulnerability, or apply vendor-supplied patches to address the missing payload validation.

Fix this in Openswan Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation1.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
7.0 hours of engineering $1,210
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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2014-2037 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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