Debian LinuxOperating system · Debian
CVE-2017-2838
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 · uneditedAn exploitable denial of service vulnerability exists within the handling of challenge packets 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 confidenceFreeRDP 2.0.0-beta1+android11 contains a denial of service vulnerability in its handling of RDP challenge packets during the connection handshake phase. A malicious server or man-in-the-middle attacker can send a specially crafted challenge packet that causes the FreeRDP client to crash/terminate unexpectedly.
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
= 8.0= 9.0= 2.0.0CVSS 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 checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Confirm FreeRDP is installedRun 'dpkg -l | grep freerdp' on Debian systems, or check for binaries like 'which xfreerdp' or 'which freerdp'Affected if FreeRDP package or binary is present on the system
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Identify installed FreeRDP versionRun 'dpkg -l freerdp' or 'freerdp-version' command to retrieve the exact version numberAffected if Version returned is 2.0.0 (specifically the beta1+android11 variant)
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Verify operating system versionRun 'cat /etc/debian_version' or 'lsb_release -a' to confirm Debian versionAffected if Operating system is Debian 8.0 or Debian 9.0 with FreeRDP 2.0.0 installed
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Confirm vulnerability trigger conditionThe flaw is client-side; it triggers when the FreeRDP client initiates a connection to a malicious or compromised RDP server during the challenge/response handshake phaseAffected if FreeRDP client is used to connect to untrusted RDP servers
A system is affected if FreeRDP version 2.0.0 is installed on Debian Linux 8.0 or 9.0, and the client is used to connect to RDP servers (the vulnerability lies in how the client processes challenge packets from the server).
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 dataUpdate FreeRDP to the latest stable version when the patch is released. Until then, avoid connecting to untrusted RDP servers and use network-level protections (VPN, segmentation) to mitigate MITM risks.
Fix this in Debian Linux
Scoped from the published advisory
- Consultation1.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $1,664.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2017-2838 — 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-2017-2838 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
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