CVE-2002-2181
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 · uneditedSonicWall Content Filtering allows local users to access prohibited web sites via requests to the web site's IP address instead of the domain name.
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 confidenceSonicWall Content Filtering can be bypassed by local users requesting prohibited websites via their IP addresses instead of domain names. The filter appears to only evaluate domain names in HTTP requests, allowing circumvention when users directly input the IP address of blocked sites.
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 dataall versionsCVSS 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
- None
- Availability
- None
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N
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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Confirm SonicWall Content Filtering is deployedLog into the SonicWall management interface and navigate to the Content Filtering section to verify the service is enabled and configured.Affected if The Content Filtering service is enabled and protecting the network.
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Verify HTTP proxy inspection is activeCheck the Content Filter policy settings to confirm HTTP traffic is being intercepted and examined for domain names.Affected if HTTP proxy inspection is enabled and filtering domain names in requests.
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Test IP address bypassFrom a client behind the SonicWall, attempt to access a known-prohibited website using its direct IP address instead of its domain name (for example, http://<IP_ADDRESS> instead of http://example.com).Affected if The request succeeds and the site loads without being blocked, indicating the filter only checks domain names.
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Inspect reverse DNS lookup configurationIn the SonicWall Content Filter settings, examine whether reverse DNS lookup or IP-based filtering options are enabled.Affected if Reverse DNS lookup is disabled or not configured, allowing IP-based requests to bypass domain filtering.
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Review IP address blocklistCheck if the content filter maintains a blocklist of known IP addresses associated with prohibited domains.Affected if No IP-based blocklist exists or is being used by the filter.
A user is affected if SonicWall Content Filtering is enabled but does not inspect or block requests made via direct IP addresses, allowing circumvention of domain-based filtering controls.
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 dataConfigure the SonicWall content filter to perform reverse DNS lookups or maintain a database of IP addresses associated with prohibited domains to enforce filtering regardless of how the request is formulated.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation4.0 h
- Testing3.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2002-2181 — 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-2002-2181 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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