Frontpage Server ExtensionsPlugin / extension · Microsoft

CVE-2003-0824

MEDIUM · 5.0 CVSS v2.0 Published 2003-12-15
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
59/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
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
Unknown vulnerability in the SmartHTML interpreter (shtml.dll) in Microsoft FrontPage Server Extensions 2000 and 2002, and Microsoft SharePoint Team Services 2002, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (response failure) via a certain request.

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 confidence

A denial of service vulnerability exists in the SmartHTML interpreter (shtml.dll) component of Microsoft FrontPage Server Extensions 2000/2002 and SharePoint Team Services 2002. Remote attackers can send specially crafted requests to the vulnerable DLL, causing the service to fail and prevent legitimate responses.

MitigationSince these are legacy Microsoft products from 2002 with no further vendor support, the primary remediation is to disable or remove the FrontPage Server Extensions and SharePoint Team Services components entirely, or migrate to supported Microsoft web platforms.

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
Frontpage Server ExtensionsPlugin / extension
Affected:= 2000= 2002
Sharepoint Team ServicesApplication
Affected:= 2002
Windows 2000Operating system
Affected:all versions
Windows XpOperating system
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
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 checks

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

  1. Check for FrontPage Server Extensions installation
    Open Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs, look for 'Microsoft FrontPage Server Extensions 2000' or 'Microsoft FrontPage Server Extensions 2002' in the installed programs list
    Affected if Either FrontPage Server Extensions 2000 or 2002 appears in installed programs
  2. Check for SharePoint Team Services installation
    Open Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs, look for 'Microsoft SharePoint Team Services 2002' or 'SharePoint Team Services' in the installed programs list
    Affected if SharePoint Team Services 2002 appears in installed programs
  3. Locate the shtml.dll component
    Search for shtml.dll on the system using Windows Explorer search or the command 'dir /s c:\shtml.dll'. Common paths include \Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\frontpage\ or \inetpub\wwwroot\
    Affected if shtml.dll is found on the system in any location
  4. Verify IIS web server is running
    Open Services console (services.msc) and check if 'IIS Admin Service' or 'World Wide Web Publishing Service' is running, or run 'iisreset /status' from command prompt
    Affected if IIS is running on a system that has FrontPage Server Extensions or SharePoint Team Services installed

If FrontPage Server Extensions 2000/2002 or SharePoint Team Services 2002 are installed and IIS is running, the system is vulnerable to this CVE and will be affected by the denial of service condition.

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 these are legacy Microsoft products from 2002 with no further vendor support, the primary remediation is to disable or remove the FrontPage Server Extensions and SharePoint Team Services components entirely, or migrate to supported Microsoft web platforms.

Fix this in Frontpage Server Extensions Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation4.0 h
  • Testing2.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
9.0 hours of engineering $1,600
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Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

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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-2003-0824 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

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.

What belongs here
  • 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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