Ubuntu LinuxOperating system · Canonical
CVE-2014-9221
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 · uneditedstrongSwan 4.5.x through 5.2.x before 5.2.1 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (invalid pointer dereference) via a crafted IKEv2 Key Exchange (KE) message with Diffie-Hellman (DH) group 1025.
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 confidencestrongSwan 4.5.x through 5.2.x before 5.2.1 contains an invalid pointer dereference vulnerability in the IKEv2 Key Exchange handler. When processing a specially crafted KE message that specifies Diffie-Hellman group 1025, the software dereferences an invalid pointer, causing a denial of service.
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
Ubuntu LinuxOperating system
= 14.04= 14.10
FedoraOperating system
= 21
Debian LinuxOperating system
= 7.0= 4.5.0= 4.5.1= 4.5.2= 4.5.3= 4.6.0= 4.6.1= 4.6.2= 4.6.3= 4.6.4= 5.0.0= 5.0.1= 5.0.2= 13.1= 13.2CVSS 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 checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Verify strongSwan is installedRun 'dpkg -l | grep strongswan' (Debian/Ubuntu) or 'rpm -qa | grep strongswan' (Fedora/openSUSE) to list installed strongSwan packagesAffected if No strongSwan package is found - not affected; if strongSwan is installed, continue to version check
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Check installed strongSwan versionRun 'strongswan -v' or 'ipsec --version' to display the version numberAffected if Version is 5.2.1 or higher - not affected; version is 4.5.0 through 5.2.0 - potentially affected; version is unknown or not displayed, verify via package manager
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Confirm IKEv2 is configuredInspect /etc/ipsec.conf and look for 'ike=' or 'keyexchange=ikev2' directives, or check for IKEv2 connection profiles in /etc/ipsec.d/Affected if No IKEv2 configurations exist - low risk but version still matters; IKEv2 is enabled - continue to service check
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Verify strongSwan service is activeRun 'systemctl status strongswan' or 'service strongswan status' to check if the daemon is runningAffected if Service is not running - not currently exposed; service is running with affected version - affected and exposed
User is affected if strongSwan version 4.5.0 through 5.2.0 is installed AND the IKEv2 service is enabled and running, as the vulnerability triggers when processing a KE message with DH group 1025.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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 dataUpgrade strongSwan to version 5.2.1 or later. As a workaround, network filtering can block IKEv2 messages with unexpected DH group values.
Fix this in Ubuntu Linux
Scoped from the published advisory
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation4.0 h
- Testing6.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $3,808.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2014-9221 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2014-9221 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- 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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