Allaire Security Bulletin (ASB00-08) - Microsoft has announced a Microsoft has released a patch for a security vulnerability in Microsoft(r) Internet Information Server. The vulnerability could allow a malicious user to slow a web server's response or prevent it from providing service altogether for a period of time. This is not a problem with ColdFusion Server itself, but it is an issue that can affect ColdFusion users. Allaire recommends that customers follow the instructions posted on the Microsoft Web site to address this issue.
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Allaire Security Bulletin (ASB00-08)
Microsoft Internet Information Server Patch Available for "Myriad Escaped Characters"
Vulnerability
Originally Posted: April 24, 2000
Last Updated: April 24, 2000
Summary
Microsoft has announced a Microsoft has released a patch that eliminates a security
vulnerability in Microsoft(r) Internet Information Server. The vulnerability could allow a malicious
user to slow a web server's response or prevent it from providing service altogether for a
period of time. This is not a problem with ColdFusion Server itself, but it is an issue that can
affect ColdFusion users. Allaire recommends that customers follow the instructions posted on
the Microsoft Web site to address this issue.
Issue
This issue is clearly explained in the Microsoft Security Bulletin: "Special characters can be
embedded in URLs by use of so-called escaped character sequences. By providing a
specially-malformed URL with an extremely large number of escaped characters, a malicious
user could arbitrarily increase the work factor associated with parsing the escaped characters,
thereby consuming much or all of the CPU availability on the server and preventing useful work
from being done."
Further: "The vulnerability does not provide any capability to cause the server to fail, or to add,
change or delete data on it. The slowdown would only last until the URL had been processed, at
which point service would return to normal."
Affected Software Versions
Any ColdFusion Server running on Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 or Microsoft
Windows 2000
What Allaire is Doing
This is not an Allaire product. We are recommending that customers reference the information
at Microsoft's site to address this issue.
What Customers Should Do
There is a patch available to correct this problem. It is detailed in the following Microsoft
Security Bulletin (MS00-023):
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms00-023.asp
Please note: this issue and patch may not be required for all IIS users. Allaire customers
should review all material in the Microsoft Security Bulletin and related documents
carefully before applying the patch. As always, customers should test patch changes in
a testing environment before modifying production servers.
Revisions
April 24, 2000 -- Bulletin first created.
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