CVE-2024-2182 identifies a vulnerability in Open Virtual Network (OVN) version 20.03.0 related to origin validation errors in the handling of Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) packets. OVN is a network virtualization system widely used to manage virtual networks in cloud and data center environments. In OVN clusters configured to use BFD between hypervisors for high availability, the vulnerability allows an attacker with access to unprivileged workloads—such as virtual machines or containers—to inject specially crafted BFD packets. These packets bypass origin validation checks, which should normally ensure that only legitimate BFD packets from trusted sources are processed. By injecting these malicious packets, the attacker can trigger a denial of service (DoS) condition, disrupting the high availability mechanism and potentially causing network outages or degraded service. The CVSS 3.1 base score of 6.5 reflects a medium severity, with an attack vector of network (AV:N), low attack complexity (AC:L), requiring privileges (PR:L) but no user interaction (UI:N). The impact is limited to availability (A:H) with no confidentiality or integrity loss. No known exploits have been reported in the wild as of the publication date. The vulnerability underscores the risks of insufficient origin validation in virtualized network environments, especially where BFD is used to maintain rapid failure detection and failover between hypervisors. Organizations using OVN 20.03.0 with BFD enabled should assess their exposure and apply mitigations or patches once available.

For European organizations, this vulnerability poses a risk to the availability of virtualized network infrastructure relying on OVN with BFD enabled. Disruption of BFD can lead to failure in detecting link or node failures promptly, causing network outages or degraded performance in cloud environments, data centers, or private clouds. This can affect critical services hosted on virtual machines or containers, impacting business continuity and service level agreements. The impact is particularly significant for sectors relying heavily on virtualized infrastructure such as financial services, telecommunications, and public sector entities. Since the attack can be launched from inside unprivileged workloads, insider threats or compromised virtual machines could exploit this vulnerability to cause denial of service. Although confidentiality and integrity are not directly affected, the availability impact can indirectly lead to operational disruptions and potential financial losses. European organizations with large-scale OVN deployments should consider this vulnerability a medium risk but prioritize mitigation to avoid service interruptions.

1. Apply patches or updates from OVN maintainers or your Linux distribution as soon as they become available to address CVE-2024-2182. 2. Restrict the ability of unprivileged workloads (VMs or containers) to send BFD packets by implementing strict network segmentation and filtering rules at the hypervisor or virtual switch level. 3. Monitor BFD traffic for anomalies such as unexpected packet sources or abnormal packet rates, and trigger alerts or automated responses to suspicious activity. 4. Harden the configuration of OVN clusters by disabling BFD where not strictly necessary or using alternative high availability mechanisms if feasible. 5. Employ runtime security tools to detect and prevent unauthorized packet injection from workloads. 6. Conduct regular security audits of virtualized network environments to ensure compliance with best practices for packet origin validation and workload isolation. 7. Educate administrators and security teams about the risks of internal packet injection attacks and the importance of monitoring internal network traffic.