J-Security Center

Title: IBM WebSphere Large HTTP Header Buffer Overflow Vulnerability

Severity: HIGH

Description:

IBM WebSphere is a commercial web application server that runs on a number of platforms including Linux and UNIX variants and Microsoft Windows.

A buffer-overflow vulnerability has been reported for IBM WebSphere 4.0.3 running on a Microsoft Windows 2000 platform. Reportedly, IBM WebSphere fails to properly check bounds when receiving HTTP requests. Specifically, the vulnerability is related to the WebSphere plugin not limiting the size of HTTP POST data that would be received by the application server.

An attacker can exploit this vulnerability by making an HTTP request consisting of a 'Host' field value composed of greater than 796 characters. This will cause the application server to crash. Since this vulnerability is due to a buffer-overflow condition, attacker-supplied code may be executed, but this has not been confirmed.

Affected Products:

  • IBM Websphere Application Server 4.0.3

References:

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