CVE-2000-0304
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 · uneditedMicrosoft IIS 4.0 and 5.0 with the IISADMPWD virtual directory installed allows a remote attacker to cause a denial of service via a malformed request to the inetinfo.exe program, aka the "Undelimited .HTR Request" vulnerability.
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 · high confidenceMicrosoft IIS 4.0 and 5.0 with the IISADMPWD virtual directory installed allows a remote attacker to cause a denial of service by sending a malformed .HTR request to the inetinfo.exe process, causing it to crash or become unresponsive.
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= 4.0= 5.0CVSS 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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Check IIS versionOpen IIS Manager (inetmgr.exe) and view the server properties, or run 'inetmgr' from command line, or check the file version of inetinfo.exe in %SystemRoot%\System32\inetsrv\Affected if The installed version is Microsoft IIS 4.0 or Microsoft IIS 5.0
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Locate IISADMPWD virtual directoryOpen IIS Manager, expand the default website, and look for a virtual directory named 'IISADMPWD'. Alternatively, check the IIS metabase.xml file in %SystemRoot%\System32\inetsrv\ for an IISADMPWD entry.Affected if The IISADMPWD virtual directory exists on the IIS server
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Verify .HTR script mapping is activeIn IIS Manager, right-click the IISADMPWD virtual directory, select Properties, and verify that the .HTR application mapping is defined (default path is scripts\ism.dll*, or check the application mappings for .HTR extension).Affected if The .HTR handler mapping is enabled for the IISADMPWD virtual directory
Your environment is affected if you are running IIS 4.0 or 5.0 with the IISADMPWD virtual directory and its .HTR handler still installed and enabled.
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 dataDisable or remove the IISADMPWD virtual directory from IIS, or apply the Microsoft security patch for this vulnerability. If IISADMPWD is required for password management, ensure only authorized network segments can access it and monitor for anomalous request patterns.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2000-0304 — 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-2000-0304 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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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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