CVE-2002-1714
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 Internet Explorer 5.0 through 6.0 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via an object of type "text/html" with the DATA field that identifies the HTML document that contains the object, which may cause infinite recursion.
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 confidenceMicrosoft Internet Explorer 5.0 through 6.0 contains a denial of service vulnerability when processing HTML objects of type 'text/html' with a DATA attribute pointing to another HTML document. This creates a recursive loop where the object references itself, leading to infinite recursion and ultimately crashing the browser.
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= 6.0= 5.0= 5.5= 6.0CVSS 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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Locate Internet Explorer installationCheck the system for Internet Explorer by examining the version. On Windows, open a command prompt and run: reg query 'HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer' /v Version. Alternatively, open IE (if present) and go to Help > About Internet Explorer.Affected if The registry key exists and returns a version value, indicating IE is installed.
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Identify the installed IE versionExamine the Version value returned from the registry query or the About dialog. The version string will be in format like 6.0.2800.xxxx for IE 6, 5.5xxxx for IE 5.5, or 5.00.xxxx for IE 5.0.Affected if The version starts with 5.0, 5.5, or 6.0 (e.g., 5.00.xxxx, 5.5xxxx, or 6.0.xxxx).
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Confirm legacy IE is still presentVerify the iexplore.exe executable exists in typical locations such as C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe or C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe. Use File Explorer or command: dir 'C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe'Affected if The iexplore.exe file exists in these standard installation directories, indicating the browser remains on the system.
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Check if IE is in use as default browserOn the system, check if Internet Explorer is set as the default browser or actively used. This can be observed in Windows Settings > Apps > Default apps, or by attempting to open an HTML file and noting which browser launches.Affected if IE is configured as the default browser or is actively being used to open web content.
If Internet Explorer version 5.0, 5.5, or 6.0 is installed and remains on the system, the environment is affected by this CVE and the DoS condition can be triggered by loading a specially crafted HTML page with a recursive text/html object reference.
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 dataThis vulnerability affected IE 5-6, which are obsolete and no longer supported. Organizations should ensure legacy Internet Explorer installations are removed from systems. Modern browsers (Edge, Chrome, Firefox) are not affected by this vulnerability.
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- Testing1.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2002-1714 — 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-2002-1714 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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