CVE-2000-0732 in Worm Webserver
Summary
by MITRE
Worm HTTP server allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service via a long URL.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 04/06/2019
The vulnerability described in CVE-2000-0732 represents a classic denial of service weakness in network services that emerged during the early days of internet infrastructure development. This particular flaw affected worm HTTP servers, which were early implementations of web servers designed to handle HTTP protocol requests from clients. The vulnerability specifically targeted the server's handling of Uniform Resource Locators, demonstrating how seemingly benign input processing could be exploited to disrupt service availability.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from inadequate input validation within the HTTP server's URL parsing mechanism. When a remote attacker crafts a maliciously long URL and submits it to the affected server, the server fails to properly handle the excessive input length. This flaw typically manifests as buffer overflow conditions or memory allocation issues where the server attempts to process or store the overly long URL string beyond its allocated memory boundaries. The vulnerability operates at the application layer of the network stack, specifically within the HTTP protocol handling components that are responsible for parsing and interpreting client requests. According to CWE classification, this represents a variant of CWE-121, which deals with stack-based buffer overflow conditions, though the exact manifestation may vary depending on the specific server implementation.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple service disruption to potentially compromise the entire availability of the affected HTTP server. When exploited successfully, the denial of service attack can render the web server completely unresponsive to legitimate client requests, effectively preventing users from accessing web content hosted on that server. This type of attack directly violates the availability principle of the CIA triad and can have cascading effects on dependent services, particularly in environments where the affected server serves as a critical component of larger web infrastructure. The attack requires minimal resources from the attacker, making it particularly dangerous as it can be executed repeatedly to maintain service disruption, and the impact is immediate and severe without requiring complex exploitation techniques or privileged access.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2000-0732 should focus on implementing robust input validation mechanisms within HTTP server implementations. Organizations should ensure that all web servers properly limit URL length parameters and implement appropriate buffer management techniques to prevent memory overflow conditions. This includes configuring maximum URL length limits in server configuration files and implementing proper error handling for malformed input. Additionally, network administrators should deploy intrusion detection systems that can identify and alert on suspicious URL patterns that exceed normal operational parameters. From an ATT&CK framework perspective, this vulnerability aligns with techniques categorized under T1499, which covers network denial of service attacks, and T1071, which covers application layer protocols. Regular security updates and patches should be applied to ensure that servers are not running vulnerable versions of HTTP server software, while network segmentation and rate limiting can provide additional defense in depth measures to limit the impact of such attacks on broader network infrastructure.