Debian LinuxOperating system · Debian
CVE-2017-2839
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 confidenceA denial of service vulnerability exists in FreeRDP 2.0.0-beta1+android11 where specially crafted challenge packets during the authentication handshake cause program termination. The vulnerability is triggered during challenge packet processing, leading to the FreeRDP client crashing.
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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Identify if FreeRDP is installedRun 'freerdp-version' or check package manager for freerdp (e.g., dpkg -l freerdp, rpm -qa | grep freerdp)Affected if FreeRDP package is present on the system
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Determine installed FreeRDP versionExecute 'freerdp-version' or use package manager query to retrieve the exact version numberAffected if Version is 2.0.0 (specific beta or release variant)
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Check Debian system version if running DebianRun 'cat /etc/debian_version' to identify Debian release (8.0 or 9.0)Affected if System is Debian 8.0 or 9.0 with freerdp version 2.0.0 installed
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Determine if RDP authentication is being attemptedThis vulnerability triggers during challenge packet processing in the RDP handshake - check if FreeRDP connections to servers are configured or actively usedAffected if FreeRDP is used to connect to RDP servers where authentication handshake occurs
You are affected if FreeRDP version 2.0.0 is installed on Debian 8.0, Debian 9.0, or any other system, and you use FreeRDP to initiate RDP connections that trigger the authentication handshake with challenge packet processing.
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 containing the security patch. Additionally, implement TLS/SSL transport encryption to protect against man-in-the-middle attacks that could inject malicious challenge packets.
Fix this in Debian Linux
Scoped from the published advisory
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation1.0 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 $1,696.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2017-2839 — 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-2017-2839 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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