CVE-2002-1201
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 · uneditedIBM AIX 4.3.3 and AIX 5 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (CPU consumption or crash) via a flood of malformed TCP packets without any flags set, which prevents AIX from releasing the associated memory buffers.
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 confidenceIBM AIX 4.3.3 and AIX 5 contain a denial of service vulnerability where remote attackers can send a flood of malformed TCP packets with no flags set, causing the operating system to fail releasing associated memory buffers. This leads to memory exhaustion, excessive CPU consumption, or system crash.
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= 4.3.3= 5CVSS 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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Determine AIX versionRun 'oslevel -r' or 'uname -a' to identify the installed AIX versionAffected if If the version is exactly 4.3.3 or 5.0, the system is in the affected range
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Verify TCP/IP stack is activeConfirm network interfaces are configured and TCP/IP is running using 'netstat -in' or 'ifconfig -a'Affected if If the system has active network interfaces, it can receive the malformed TCP packets that trigger the vulnerability
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Check for existing patchesRun 'instfix -i -k' with known patch IDs or consult IBM's AIX fix list for CVE-2002-1201 fixesAffected if If no vendor patches have been applied to the affected AIX versions, the vulnerability remains unmitigated
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Confirm TCP protocol handlingReview network configuration and verify TCP traffic is permitted using 'netstat -an | grep LISTEN'Affected if If the system accepts TCP connections, it processes incoming packets and is exposed to the malformed packet attack vector
The system is affected if it runs AIX version 4.3.3 or 5.0 without vendor patches and has active TCP network connectivity that can receive the malformed no-flag TCP packets.
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 dataApply vendor-supplied patches for AIX 4.3.3 and AIX 5 that address this vulnerability. If patches are unavailable, consider network-level filtering of malformed TCP packets or upgrade to a supported AIX version.
- Consultation4.0 h
- Implementation8.0 h
- Testing6.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $5,600.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2002-1201 — 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-2002-1201 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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A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.
- 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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