Windows 2000Operating system · Microsoft

CVE-2002-0862

MEDIUM · 6.8 CVSS v2.0 Published 2002-10-04
Patch available
A vendor patch is available. No clean upgrade release — apply the published patch.
See remediation →
77/100
Remediation priority · High
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click Patch available

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 · unedited
The (1) CertGetCertificateChain, (2) CertVerifyCertificateChainPolicy, and (3) WinVerifyTrust APIs within the CryptoAPI for Microsoft products including Microsoft Windows 98 through XP, Office for Mac, Internet Explorer for Mac, and Outlook Express for Mac, do not properly verify the Basic Constraints of intermediate CA-signed X.509 certificates, which allows remote attackers to spoof the certificates of trusted sites via a man-in-the-middle attack for SSL sessions, as originally reported for Internet Explorer and IIS.

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
How this class of weakness works · CWE-295

The application does not properly validate the TLS certificate presented by the other side — skipping the chain, the hostname, or expiry — so an attacker with a forged or mismatched certificate can sit in the middle of a supposedly secure connection. It is a common trap in custom clients and misconfigured libraries. The fix is full certificate validation, and never disabling verification to make errors go away.

General guidance for the improper certificate validation class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

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
Windows 2000Operating system
Affected:all versions
Windows 98Operating system
Affected:all versions
Windows 98seOperating system
Affected:all versions
Windows MeOperating system
Affected:all versions
Windows NtOperating system
Affected:= 4.0
Windows XpOperating system
Affected:all versions
Internet ExplorerApplication
Affected:all versions
OfficeApplication
Affected:all versions

CVSS 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
M
Authentication
None
Confidentiality
Partial
Integrity
Partial
Availability
Partial

AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

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 data
Patch available Apply the vendor patch
Vendor patch docs.microsoft.com →
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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2002-0862 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

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What belongs here
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  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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