# CVE-2017-17090: Denial of service in n/a

> Flooding the SCCP channel driver causes excessive memory usage, leading to a denial of service in Asterisk PBX systems.

- **Severity:** High 7.5 (`CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 2 Dec 2017
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2017-17090, DLA-1225-1, DSA-4076-1, GHSA-m542-x3mj-mpgq, UBUNTU-CVE-2017-17090

## What is CVE-2017-17090?

CVE-2017-17090 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Digium Asterisk, published on 2 Dec 2017. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

An issue was discovered in chan_skinny.c in Asterisk Open Source 13.18.2 and older, 14.7.2 and older, and 15.1.2 and older, and Certified Asterisk 13.13-cert7 and older. If the chan_skinny (aka SCCP protocol) channel driver is flooded with certain requests, it can cause the asterisk process to use excessive amounts of virtual memory, eventually causing asterisk to stop processing requests of any kind.

Weakness: CWE-459 (Incomplete Cleanup)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2017-17090?

It affects 2 products.


Products: Digium Asterisk, Digium Certified Asterisk.

## How do I fix CVE-2017-17090?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2017-17090 being exploited?

It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2017-17090 exists.

Public exploit code:

- Asterisk 13.17.2 - 'chan_skinny' Remote Memory Corruption (exploitdb)

## Other vulnerabilities in Digium Asterisk

- [CVE-2017-14100](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-14100/): Command injection in n/a (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2014-8418](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2014-8418/): Privilege escalation in n/a (critical 9.0)
- [CVE-2011-1599](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2011-1599/): Missing authorization in n/a (critical 9.0)
- [CVE-2017-16671](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-16671/): Memory corruption in n/a (high 8.8)
- [CVE-2017-7617](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-7617/): Memory corruption in n/a (high 8.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2017-17090 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2017-17090 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Digium Asterisk, published on 2 Dec 2017. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2017-17090 exists.

Affected product: Digium Asterisk. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-17090/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-17090/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2017-17090
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2017-17090
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2017-17090

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-17090/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.