CVE-2003-0899 describes a critical buffer overflow vulnerability in the 'defang' function of libhttpd.c within thttpd versions 2.21 to 2.23b1, affecting the acme thttpd web server. This flaw allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code by sending requests containing '<' or '>' characters, which are expanded into longer HTML entities, leading to the overflow. With a CVSS score of 9.8 (CRITICAL), this vulnerability is easily exploitable over the network with low attack complexity and no user interaction, resulting in complete compromise of confidentiality, integrity, and availability. While not listed in CISA's KEV catalog, proof-of-concept exploit code is publicly available on ExploitDB, and it has garnered significant community discussion, indicating its potential for active exploitation.
| Vendor | Product | Version(s) | CPE |
|---|---|---|---|
>= 2.21, < 2.23CPE matchmatch criteria | cpe:2.3:a:acme:thttpd:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* | ||
2.23CPE matchmatch criteria | cpe:2.3:a:acme:thttpd:2.23:-:*:*:*:*:*:* | ||
2.23CPE matchmatch criteria | cpe:2.3:a:acme:thttpd:2.23:b1:*:*:*:*:*:* |
CVSS version used by this source: 3.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 Twitter, 0.1 Reddit, 0.3 Bluesky, 0.3 Mastodon, and 2.4 GitHub mentions.
No media coverage found for this CVE.
The average CVE in this peer group has 0.3 InfoSec Media, 0.0 Vendor Blog, and 0.0 Security Researcher mentions.
Remediation records are not available for this CVE.