Tutorial - Inetserv Vulnerabilities

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Inetserv Vulnerabilities

Created 8/30/01
CVE 2000-0065

### Impact

A remote attacker could create a denial of service or execute arbitrary commands on the server.

### Background

Inetserv is a free e-mail server for Windows platforms. It includes support for the `SMTP`, `POP3`, `daytime`, `finger`, and `whois` protocols, and also features a telnet interface and a web interface for users to access e-mail.

In order to access e-mail, users are required to provide a user name and password. The authentication is performed using Basic WWW-Authentication, in which the user name and password are encoded by the browser and sent to the server in the `HTTP` header.

### The Problem

Due to a buffer overflow condition in the web mail interface, a remote attacker could crash the service by sending a very long request to the web server. Furthermore, a problem in the processing of the WWW-Authentication header could also allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary commands by sending a long, specially crafted username and password pair. Inetserv versions 3.0 through 3.2.1 are affected by this vulnerability. An attacker would not need to know a valid user name or password in order to exploit this vulnerability.

CVE 2000-0065
Due to an older vulnerability affecting version 3.0, it could also be possible for a remote attacker to execute arbitrary commands by sending a long, specially-crafted `HTTP` request to the web server.

### Resolution

Install a fix from the vendor when one becomes available. If no fix is available, the web mail interface should be turned off.

### Where can I read more about this?

The vulnerabilities affecting Inetserv versions up to 3.2.1 were posted to Bugtraq. The vulnerability in version 3.0 was posted to NTBugtraq.