CVE-1999-1478
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedThe Sun HotSpot Performance Engine VM allows a remote attacker to cause a denial of service on any server running HotSpot via a URL that includes the [ character.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · moderate confidenceThe Sun HotSpot Performance Engine VM (Java Virtual Machine) contains a parsing vulnerability where processing a URL containing the '[' character causes a denial of service. This suggests improper handling of bracket characters in URL parsing logic within the VM, leading to a crash or hang condition.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data= 3.0= 4.0CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Authentication
- None
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- Partial
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify IIS versionCheck the IIS version by opening the IIS Manager, or run 'reg query HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W3SVC\Parameters' or check the version of inetinfo.exe in the system32 folderAffected if The installed version equals 3.0 or 4.0 exactly
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Confirm IIS is running Java-based web applicationsCheck for presence of Java servlet containers, JSP engines, or Java-based web applications hosted on IIS, or check for ISAPI Java extensionsAffected if Java web applications are hosted that may process URLs through a Java VM
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Test URL parsing with bracket characterSend an HTTP request to the server with a URL containing '[' (for example: GET /[ HTTP/1.1) and observe if the server hangs or crashesAffected if The server becomes unresponsive or crashes when processing a URL with '[' character
A system is affected if it is running Microsoft IIS version 3.0 or 4.0 and processes URLs through the Sun HotSpot Java VM, causing a crash when URLs contain the '[' character.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataGiven the extreme age of this vulnerability (1999), the recommended remediation is to upgrade the entire Java environment to a current, supported version, as older HotSpot implementations are no longer maintained. As an interim measure, input filtering at a proxy or web application firewall level could block URLs containing the '[' character.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation4.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-1999-1478 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-1999-1478 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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