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Debian LinuxOperating system · Debian

CVE-2017-2836

MEDIUM · 5.9 CVSS v3.1 Published 2018-04-24
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
68/100
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
An exploitable denial of service vulnerability exists within the reading of proprietary server certificates in FreeRDP 2.0.0-beta1+android11. A specially crafted challenge packet can cause the program termination leading to a denial of service condition. An attacker can compromise the server or use man in the middle to trigger this vulnerability.

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 · moderate confidence

A denial of service vulnerability exists in FreeRDP 2.0.0-beta1+android11 during the parsing of proprietary server certificates. When processing a specially crafted challenge packet containing malformed certificate data, the application terminates unexpectedly, causing service disruption.

MitigationUpdate FreeRDP to the latest patched version. Additionally, ensure RDP servers are not compromised and use secure network paths to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks that could deliver malicious certificate challenges.

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
Debian LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 8.0= 9.0
FreerdpApplication
Affected:= 2.0.0

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
High
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

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 if FreeRDP is installed
    Run 'dpkg -l | grep -i freerdp' on Debian systems, or check for freerdp packages via your system's package manager. Also verify if client tools like xfreerdp, remmina, or other RDP clients using FreeRDP libraries are present.
    Affected if Any FreeRDP package or RDP client using FreeRDP libraries is installed on the system
  2. Check the FreeRDP version
    Run 'xfreerdp --version' or check the package version via 'dpkg -l freerdp' or 'rpm -qi freerdp' depending on your distribution.
    Affected if The installed version is exactly 2.0.0
  3. Confirm Debian distribution version
    Run 'cat /etc/debian_version' to identify the Debian release.
    Affected if The system runs Debian 8.0 or Debian 9.0 and has FreeRDP installed
  4. Determine if RDP client functionality is in use
    Check for active RDP connections or recent RDP client usage. Review logs in /var/log for freerdp or xfreerdp activity, or check running processes for RDP client binaries.
    Affected if FreeRDP is actively used to connect to RDP servers where it processes server certificates
  5. Verify certificate handling is enabled
    During normal RDP connections, FreeRDP processes server certificates for authentication. No specific configuration disablement is required for the vulnerability to trigger - it occurs during standard certificate parsing when connecting to a compromised or man-in-the-middle attacker-controlled RDP server.
    Affected if FreeRDP connects to RDP servers that send malformed certificate challenge packets

A system is affected if FreeRDP version 2.0.0 is installed (particularly on Debian 8.0 or 9.0) and is used to connect to RDP servers, as the DoS triggers during certificate parsing when receiving a malformed certificate challenge.

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 FreeRDP to the latest patched version. Additionally, ensure RDP servers are not compromised and use secure network paths to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks that could deliver malicious certificate challenges.

Fix this in Debian Linux Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation3.0 h
  • Implementation6.0 h
  • Testing5.0 h
  • Review / QA3.0 h
17.0 hours of engineering $2,970
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Scan for this in your stack

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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-2017-2836 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
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data