CVE-2000-0544
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 · uneditedWindows NT and Windows 2000 hosts allow a remote attacker to cause a denial of service via malformed DCE/RPC SMBwriteX requests that contain an invalid data length.
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 confidenceWindows NT and Windows 2000 contain a flaw in the SMB implementation where malformed DCE/RPC SMBwriteX requests containing an invalid data length field cause the server service to crash, resulting in a remote denial of service 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 dataall versions= 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 the Windows versionRun 'winver' or check System Properties to determine if the OS is Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000 (any version).Affected if The OS is Windows NT 4.0 or any version of Windows 2000.
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Verify SMB service statusOpen Services (services.msc) and check if the 'Server' service (LanmanServer) is running. Alternatively, run 'net start' and look for 'Server' or 'LAN Manager Server'.Affected if The Server service is running and SMB is enabled.
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Confirm SMB ports are listeningRun 'netstat -an | findstr "139 445"' or use PortQry.exe to check if ports 139 or 445 are in LISTENING or ESTABLISHED state.Affected if SMB ports 139 or 445 are open and listening on the system.
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Assess network exposureCheck firewall rules or network segmentation to determine if the SMB ports are accessible from untrusted networks. Use 'netstat -an' to see which IP addresses the SMB ports are bound to (0.0.0.0 means exposed).Affected if The system is directly accessible on ports 139/445 from untrusted networks.
A system is affected if it runs Windows NT 4.0 or any version of Windows 2000 with the Server service enabled and SMB ports exposed to the network.
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 dataSince Windows NT and Windows 2000 are end-of-life and no longer receive security updates, the recommended remediation is to either migrate to supported Windows versions or implement network-level controls to block SMB traffic (ports 139/445) from untrusted networks.
- Consultation4.0 h
- Implementation8.0 h
- Testing4.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
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Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2000-0544 — 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-2000-0544 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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