CVE-2001-0545
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 · uneditedIIS 4.0 with URL redirection enabled allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via a malformed request that specifies a length that is different than the actual 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 · moderate confidenceIIS 4.0 with URL redirection enabled crashes when receiving a malformed HTTP request where the specified Content-Length header differs from the actual request body length, causing a denial of service.
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= 4.0CVSS 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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Verify IIS version is 4.0Check the IIS version by inspecting the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\InetStp or by checking the properties of the IIS service in the Windows Services snap-inAffected if The installed version is not Microsoft Internet Information Server 4.0, then this CVE does not apply
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Confirm URL redirection is enabledCheck the IIS Metabase (mbschema.xml or via IIS Manager) for the URLRedirect setting, or inspect the registry key for URL redirection configuration under the IIS metabase pathAffected if URL redirection is not enabled in IIS 4.0, the vulnerability cannot be triggered
A system is affected only if it is running IIS 4.0 with URL redirection feature enabled, as the crash requires both conditions to be present.
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 URL redirection in IIS 4.0 or migrate to a supported IIS version, as IIS 4.0 is obsolete and no longer receives security updates.
- Consultation8.0 h
- Implementation24.0 h
- Testing8.0 h
- Review / QA4.0 h
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Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2001-0545 — 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-2001-0545 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
- No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data