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Ash Qin

Alpha-Fox Security Disclosure Report 2025.03.21

Posted by Ash Qin on 21 March 2025, 6:21:58 pm

Table of Contents

• Executive Summary
  • What Was the Issue?
  • What Could Have Happened?
  • How Was It Addressed?
  • Was Any Data Compromised?
• Detailed Report
  • Affected Systems and Components
  • Summary of Findings
  • Technical Root Cause
  • CVSS 3.1 Severity Details
  • Detailed Timeline
  • Impact
  • Remediation Actions
  • Summary

Executive Summary

This security issue primarily affected the availability and functionality of Stargates. While the term "security vulnerability" often brings to mind data breaches or stolen information, this particular vulnerability was about causing service disruption (which ISO 27001:2022 Annex A 5.24 still expects security reporting on ℹ️). Specifically, an oversight in the Stargate animation scripts allowed inputs that crashed the system, making Stargates unusable. No personal or sensitive information was ever at risk. This was purely about keeping the Stargate service stable and accessible.

What Was the Issue?

A significant security vulnerability was identified related to the Stargate dialling ring mechanism:

• Divide-by-Zero Vulnerability
  • The mathematical calculation controlling rotation speed for the Stargate dialling animations did not account for extremely low or near-zero values. This oversight resulted in a divide-by-zero condition, causing critical script failures and rendering affected Stargates inoperable.

This issue was identified by a staff member Tornado Siren.

What Could Have Happened?

Exploiting this vulnerability had profound implications:

• Service Disruption: Affected Stargates crashed and became entirely non-functional until manually reset or replaced by their owners, disrupting service and impacting user experience.

How Was It Addressed?

Alpha-Fox swiftly implemented protective measures to eliminate the vulnerability:

• Immediate Steps:
  • Server-side constraints were introduced to limit rotation speed values to a safe operational range (between 30 and 300). This effectively prevents unsafe inputs that previously triggered the divide-by-zero condition.

Was Any Data Compromised?

After a comprehensive analysis, Alpha-Fox confirmed that this flaw did not compromise any sensitive or user-specific data. The issue solely impacted operational stability.

Detailed Report

Affected Systems and Components

• Milkyway Stargate Dialing Ring
  • Controls visual dialling animations by rotating through circularly arranged symbols.

Summary of Findings

1. Divide-by-Zero Vulnerability
   • When extremely low or near-zero rotation speed values were used, the script performed calculations resulting in a divide-by-zero error.
   • Affected Stargates immediately experienced runtime failures, rendering them non-functional.

Technical Root Cause

• Rotation Speed Calculation Logic:
  • The script calculated animation timing based on user-provided rotation speed values without validating for potential zero or near-zero conditions, causing runtime mathematical errors.

CVSS 3.1 Severity Details

• CVSS Vector: AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H/E:H/RL:O/RC:C

  • Attack Vector (AV): Network
  • Attack Complexity (AC): Low
  • Privileges Required (PR): None
  • User Interaction (UI): None
  • Scope (S): Unchanged
  • Confidentiality (C): None
  • Integrity (I): None
  • Availability (A): High
  • Exploit Code Maturity (E): High
  • Remediation Level (RL): Official Fix
  • Report Confidence (RC): Confirmed

• CVSS Base Score: 7.5

• Impact Subscore: 3.6

• Exploitability Subscore: 3.9

• Overall CVSS Score: 7.5

This indicates a high severity due to the significant impact on availability.

Detailed Timeline

• 2025.03.20
  • Discovery: Staff member Tornado Siren identified crashes triggered by low-speed dialling inputs.
  • Root Cause Analysis: Alpha-Fox promptly identified the divide-by-zero error in rotation speed calculations.
  • Immediate Remediation: Implemented server-side input validation restricting rotation speeds.

Impact

• Service Availability

  • Script crashes resulted in total inoperability of affected Stargates, significantly impacting user experience and service reliability.

• Data Integrity and Confidentiality

  • Not affected by this vulnerability.

Remediation Actions

1. Rotation Speed Constraints

   • Server-side enforcement of rotation speed limits (30-300) now prevents invalid or unsafe values.

2. Immediate Deployment

   • Rapidly deployed protective update to all existing Stargates.

Summary

By quickly introducing server-side input validation for rotation speed, Alpha-Fox fully resolved the high-severity divide-by-zero vulnerability. This action restored the operational stability of the Stargate dialling scripts, ensuring continued reliability and enhanced resilience. No sensitive data was compromised, and the implemented measures fully mitigate the identified risks.