High

Persistent DoS in GNOME Vino authentication handling

IdentifiersCVE-2013-5745CWE-20· Improper Input Validation

CVE-2013-5745 is a remote persistent denial-of-service vulnerability in GNOME Vino affecting 2.26.1, 2.32.1, 3.7.3 and earlier, and 3.8 when encryption is disabled. The flaw is in the vino_server_client_data_pending function in vino-server.c, where client state is not properly cleared if an error closes the connection during authentication. An attacker can exploit this by connecting as a VNC client that claims support for protocol version 3.3 and then sending malformed data during the authentication-selection stage. This leaves the server in a bad state that results in an infinite loop and continued resource consumption.

For your environment

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ANALYST BRIEF

Impact, mitigation & remediation

What it means. What to do now. Patch path, mitigations, and the assume-compromise checklist.

Impact

What an attacker gets, and what they’ve been doing with it.

Successful exploitation causes a persistent denial-of-service condition. The Vino VNC server can become unable to handle new client connections until the service is restarted. The flaw can also drive sustained CPU usage and uncontrolled growth of session error logging, which may consume disk space and potentially escalate into broader system-level service disruption through filesystem exhaustion.

Mitigation

If you can’t patch tonight, do this now.

If immediate patching is not possible, reduce exposure by restricting network access to the Vino service to trusted hosts only, disabling the service where it is not required, and avoiding configurations that expose unauthenticated VNC access to untrusted networks. For affected 3.8 deployments, enabling encryption may reduce exposure because the vulnerable condition is specified when encryption is disabled. Operationally, monitor for abnormal CPU consumption and rapid growth of session error logs, and restart the service if the denial-of-service condition is triggered.

Remediation

Patch, then assume compromise.

Upgrade to a patched Vino release or a vendor-supplied package that includes the upstream fixes. The published remediation references vendor fixes released in commits 51435d3f946d6d2b99b876b7919b9d41022fc408 and 860337231eaccfeed4f857afd0579546a260c23f, which correct the improper cleanup of client data on authentication error handling.

PUBLIC EXPLOITS

Exploits

No valid public exploits. Mallory filtered out 1 candidate as fakes, detection scripts, or README-only repos.

VALID 0 / 1 TOTALView more in app

All candidate exploits were filtered out by Mallory's validation.

EXPOSURE SURFACE

Affected products & vendors

Products and vendors Mallory has correlated with this vulnerability. Open in Mallory to drill down to specific CPE configurations and version ranges.

VendorProductType

CanonicalUbuntu Linuxoperating_system

David KingVinoapplication

GnomeVino Vnc Serverapplication

Vendor-confirmed product mapping. Mallory continuously reconciles this list against your asset inventory.

ACTIVITY FEED

Recent activity

1 sources tracked across advisories and community write-ups. News coverage will land here when it surfaces.

1 SOURCESView more in app

No news coverage yet. Advisories and community discussion only.

What this page doesn’t show

The version that knows your environment.

This page is what’s public. Mallory adds the parts that aren’t: which of your assets are affected, which adversaries are exploiting it right now, which detections to deploy, and what to do tonight.

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Exposure mapping

Query your assets running an affected version, and investigate the blast radius.

Threat actor evidence

Every observed campaign linking this CVE to a named adversary.

Associated malware

Malware families riding this exploit, with evidence and IOCs.

Detection signatures

YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.

Vendor-by-vendor mapping

Cross-references every affected SKU, including bundled OEM variants.

Social activity