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CVE Record

CVE-2014-5117: Tor before 0.2.4.23 and 0.2.5 before 0.2.5.6-alpha maintains a circuit after an inbound RELAY_EARLY cell is...

Tor before 0.2.4.23 and 0.2.5 before 0.2.5.6-alpha maintains a circuit after an inbound RELAY_EARLY cell is received by a client, which makes it easier for remote attackers to conduct traffic-confirmation attacks by using the pattern of RELAY and RELAY_EARLY cells as a means of communicating information about hidden service names.

UnknownCVSS not scoredNot KEV-listedUpdated
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Glexia's TakeAutomated analysismoderate

Security readout for executives and security teams

Plain-English summary

This is a Tor anonymity weakness fixed in 2014. Vulnerable clients could keep a circuit open after receiving an unexpected RELAY_EARLY cell, enabling traffic-confirmation patterns that could reveal information about hidden service names. The main business risk is privacy loss for organizations relying on old Tor releases for anonymity.

Executive priority

Prioritize remediation where Tor protects sensitive identity, investigative, whistleblower, or hidden-service operations. For ordinary environments without old Tor deployments, urgency is lower but legacy discovery is still warranted.

Technical view

Tor before 0.2.4.23 and Tor 0.2.5 before 0.2.5.6-alpha mishandled inbound RELAY_EARLY cells by maintaining the circuit. The described impact is easier remote traffic-confirmation using RELAY and RELAY_EARLY cell patterns to communicate hidden-service-name information.

Likely exposure

Exposure is limited to deployments still running the affected Tor versions, including embedded appliances, old images, or unmanaged systems. Current Tor installations should be verified against the fixed version boundaries rather than assumed safe.

Exploitation context

The source bundle does not cite KEV listing or current active exploitation. Public Tor advisory and mailing-list references indicate a security-relevant traffic-confirmation issue, but the bundle does not provide exploit status beyond the vulnerability description.

Researcher notes

Evidence is limited to version bounds and high-level behavior. Avoid treating this as a generic Tor compromise; the described issue concerns traffic confirmation via RELAY_EARLY handling and hidden-service-name information leakage.

Mitigation direction

  • Upgrade Tor to 0.2.4.23, 0.2.5.6-alpha, or a later supported release.
  • Check Tor Project advisory and release notes for vendor-specific guidance.
  • Retire legacy packages, containers, and appliances bundling vulnerable Tor versions.
  • Review anonymity risk for hidden services operated during vulnerable-version use.

Validation and detection

  • Inventory all systems, containers, and appliances that include Tor.
  • Confirm Tor versions are not earlier than the fixed releases.
  • Check dependency locks and base images for bundled vulnerable Tor packages.
  • Document whether any hidden services used affected clients or relays.
Prepared
Confidence
medium
Sources
6

Public sources used

Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.

Potential ATT&CK relevance

Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context

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Vulnerability profileCVE Program record
Severity
Unknown
CVSS
Not scored
Known Exploited
No
Published
Official CVE source material

CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5

These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.

0CVSS vectors
0Timeline events
0ADP providers
6Source links

CVSS and timeline data

No CVSS vectors or timeline events were available in the normalized CVE source material.

Source materials

Affected products

Products and packages named in the record

VendorProductVersion / packageStatus
n/an/an/aListed
Weakness

CWE details

No CWE listed

CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.