CVE-2000-0179 in Openview Omniback
Summary
by MITRE
HP OpenView OmniBack 2.55 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service via a large number of connections to port 5555.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 02/03/2025
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2000-0179 affects HP OpenView OmniBack 2.55, a comprehensive backup and recovery solution designed for enterprise environments. This particular weakness resides in the application's handling of network connections on port 5555, which serves as the primary communication channel for the backup management system. The flaw represents a classic denial of service vulnerability that can be exploited by remote attackers without requiring authentication or specialized privileges, making it particularly dangerous in production environments where backup systems are critical for business continuity.
The technical nature of this vulnerability stems from insufficient input validation and connection handling mechanisms within the OmniBack 2.55 software. When multiple simultaneous connections are established to port 5555, the system fails to properly manage these concurrent requests, leading to resource exhaustion and eventual system instability. This behavior aligns with CWE-400, which categorizes unchecked resource consumption as a significant security weakness. The vulnerability operates at the network protocol level, where the application's network stack does not implement adequate rate limiting or connection management policies to prevent abuse through connection flooding attacks.
From an operational impact perspective, this vulnerability poses substantial risk to enterprise backup infrastructures that rely on HP OpenView OmniBack 2.55. A successful exploitation can render the backup management system completely unavailable, potentially disrupting critical data protection processes and leaving organizations vulnerable to data loss during system recovery operations. The remote nature of the attack means that adversaries can target these systems from anywhere on the network, making traditional perimeter-based security measures insufficient for protection. This vulnerability directly impacts the availability aspect of the CIA triad and can be categorized under the ATT&CK technique T1499.004 for network denial of service attacks.
Organizations affected by this vulnerability should implement immediate mitigations including network-level restrictions through firewall rules that limit access to port 5555, particularly from untrusted networks. The recommended approach involves configuring access control lists to restrict connections to only authorized management systems and implementing rate limiting mechanisms to prevent connection flooding. Additionally, network segmentation should be employed to isolate the backup management system from general network traffic. The most effective long-term solution requires upgrading to a patched version of HP OpenView OmniBack or migrating to a more modern backup solution that properly implements connection management and resource protection mechanisms. System administrators should also implement monitoring and alerting for unusual connection patterns to detect potential exploitation attempts.