Malformed Domain Controller Service Request Vulnerability

A core service running on all Windows 2000 domain controllers contains a flaw affecting how it processes a certain type of invalid service request which could cause CPU exhaustion.

Issue

Specifically, the service should handle the request at issue here by determining that it is invalid and simply dropping it; in fact, the service performs some resource-intensive processing and then sends a response.

If an attacker sent a continuous stream of such requests to an affected machine, it could consume most or all of the machine's CPU availability. This could cause the domain controller to process requests for service slowly or not at all, and could limit the number of new logons the machine could process and the number of Kerberos tickets that could be issued.

Affected Products

• Windows 2000 Server and Advanced Server

Download

Patch: http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/Release.asp?ReleaseID=28064

Further Details

Source: Microsoft Corporation

Reference: Microsoft Corporation

Updated: February 20, 2001

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