Binding to an Unrestricted IP Address
Incomplete Base
Structure: Simple
Description
The product assigns the address 0.0.0.0 for a database server, a cloud service/instance, or any computing resource that communicates remotely.
When a server binds to the address 0.0.0.0, it allows connections from every IP address on the local machine, effectively exposing the server to every possible network. This might be much broader access than intended by the developer or administrator, who might only be expecting the server to be reachable from a single interface/network.
Common Consequences 1
Scope: Availability
Impact: DoS: Amplification
Potential Mitigations 2
Phase: System Configuration
Assign IP addresses that are not 0.0.0.0.
Effectiveness: High
Phase: System Configuration
Strategy: Firewall
Unwanted connections to the configured server may be denied through a firewall or other packet filtering measures.
Effectiveness: High
Demonstrative Examples 1
The following code snippet uses 0.0.0.0 in a Puppet script.
Code Example:
Bad
Other
signingserver::instance {
otherThe Puppet code snippet is used to provision a signing server that will use 0.0.0.0 to accept traffic. However, as 0.0.0.0 is unrestricted, malicious users may use this IP address to launch frequent requests and cause denial of service attacks.
Code Example:
Good
Other
signingserver::instance {
otherObserved Examples 1
CVE-2022-21947Desktop manager for Kubernetes and container management binds a service to 0.0.0.0, allowing users on the network to make requests to a dashboard API.
References 2
Security Smells in Ansible and Chef Scripts: A Replication Study
Akond Rahman, Md Rayhanur Rahman, Chris Parnin, and Laurie Williams
20-06-2020
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1907.07159(2025-08-04)
ID: REF-1158
The Seven Sins: Security Smells in Infrastructure as Code Scripts
Akond Rahman, Chris Parnin, and Laurie Williams
ICSE '19: Proceedings of the 41st International Conference on Software Engineering
05-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/ICSE.2019.00033(2023-04-07)
ID: REF-1159
Applicable Platforms
Languages:
Other : Undetermined
Technologies:
Web Server : UndeterminedClient Server : UndeterminedCloud Computing : Undetermined
Modes of Introduction
System Configuration
Related Attack Patterns
Related Weaknesses