CVE-2022-24294
📋 TL;DR
CVE-2022-24294 is a regular expression denial-of-service (ReDoS) vulnerability in Apache MXNet that allows attackers to cause excessive CPU consumption by loading models with specially crafted operator names. This affects Apache MXNet versions prior to 1.9.1, potentially leading to service disruption for applications using vulnerable versions.
💻 Affected Systems
- Apache MXNet (incubating)
📦 What is this software?
Mxnet by Apache
⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact
Worst Case
Complete denial of service with MXNet processes consuming 100% CPU resources, rendering affected services unavailable until process restart.
Likely Case
Degraded performance or temporary service unavailability when processing malicious models, requiring manual intervention to restore service.
If Mitigated
Minimal impact with proper input validation and resource limits in place, though some performance degradation may still occur.
🎯 Exploit Status
Exploitation requires ability to load models into MXNet, which typically requires some level of access to the application. No public exploit code has been disclosed.
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: 1.9.1
Vendor Advisory: https://lists.apache.org/thread/b1fbfmvzlr2bbp95lqoh3mtovclfcl3o
Restart Required: Yes
Instructions:
1. Stop all MXNet services. 2. Upgrade Apache MXNet to version 1.9.1 or later using your package manager or from source. 3. Restart MXNet services. 4. Verify the version is 1.9.1 or higher.
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Input validation for model loading
allImplement strict validation of operator names in models before loading them into MXNet
# Custom validation script required - no standard command
Resource limiting
linuxSet CPU time limits on MXNet processes to prevent complete resource exhaustion
ulimit -t 300
# Set CPU time limit to 300 seconds
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Implement strict input validation for all model loading operations
- Deploy resource monitoring and alerting for abnormal CPU consumption patterns
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Check Apache MXNet version: if version is less than 1.9.1, the system is vulnerable.Check Version:
python -c "import mxnet; print(mxnet.__version__)"Verify Fix Applied:
Verify Apache MXNet version is 1.9.1 or higher after upgrade.📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Excessive CPU usage logs
- Process timeout or crash logs during model loading
- Abnormally long model loading times
Network Indicators:
- Increased response times from MXNet services
- Service unavailability after model upload/loading
SIEM Query:
source="mxnet.logs" AND ("CPU usage" > 90% OR "timeout" OR "model loading")