Norton Personal FirewallApplication · Symantec

CVE-2002-1779

HIGH · 7.5 CVSS v2.0 Published 2002-12-31
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
84/100
Remediation priority · High
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

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 "block fragmented IP Packets" option in Symantec Norton Personal Firewall 2002 (NPW) does not properly protect against certain attacks on Windows vulnerabilities such as jolt2 (CVE-2000-0305).

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 confidence

Symantec Norton Personal Firewall 2002 includes a 'block fragmented IP Packets' feature intended to mitigate fragmentation-based denial of service attacks, but the protection mechanism is flawed and fails to properly filter or block malicious fragmented packets like those used by the jolt2 exploit (CVE-2000-0305), allowing attackers to bypass the firewall's defense.

MitigationSince Norton Personal Firewall 2002 is an unsupported legacy product from 2002, the recommended remediation is to migrate to a modern, supported firewall solution or upgrade to current Norton security products that address this vulnerability.

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
Norton Personal FirewallApplication
Affected:= 2002

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
Low
Authentication
None
Confidentiality
Partial
Integrity
Partial
Availability
Partial

AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/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 checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Confirm Norton Personal Firewall 2002 is installed
    Check the installed programs list or look for Norton Personal Firewall 2002 in Add/Remove Programs (Windows XP/2000 era). Also check for Norton icon in system tray.
    Affected if The product is not installed or a different Norton product is installed (not version 2002)
  2. Verify the 'block fragmented IP packets' feature is enabled
    Open Norton Personal Firewall 2002 settings, navigate to the 'Advanced' or 'Security' settings section, and locate the 'Block fragmented IP packets' option. Check if it is checked/enabled.
    Affected if The feature is enabled but the CVE states the protection is flawed and fails to properly filter malicious fragmented packets when this setting is active
  3. Confirm the firewall is actively filtering traffic
    Verify Norton Personal Firewall 2002 service is running (npf.exe or similar process in Task Manager). Ensure the firewall is not in 'disabled' or 'allow all' mode.
    Affected if The firewall service is not running or is set to permit all traffic by default
  4. Test for fragmentation vulnerability
    Use a network testing tool to send fragmented ICMP packets (similar to jolt2 style) toward the protected system and observe if they reach the target host despite the 'block fragmented packets' setting being enabled.
    Affected if Fragmented packets reach the target system when the 'block fragmented IP packets' feature is supposedly enabled

The system is affected if Norton Personal Firewall 2002 is installed with the 'block fragmented IP packets' feature enabled, as the flaw allows malicious fragmented packets to bypass the firewall's defense.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

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
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Since Norton Personal Firewall 2002 is an unsupported legacy product from 2002, the recommended remediation is to migrate to a modern, supported firewall solution or upgrade to current Norton security products that address this vulnerability.

Fix this in Norton Personal Firewall Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation4.0 h
  • Implementation8.0 h
  • Testing4.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
18.0 hours of engineering $3,200
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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-2002-1779 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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