CVE-2003-0967
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 · uneditedrad_decode in FreeRADIUS 0.9.2 and earlier allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via a short RADIUS string attribute with a tag, which causes memcpy to be called with a -1 length argument, as demonstrated using the Tunnel-Password attribute.
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 confidenceIn FreeRADIUS 0.9.2 and earlier, the rad_decode function improperly handles short RADIUS string attributes that include a tag (such as Tunnel-Password). When processing these attributes, the code calculates a length value that becomes -1, which is then passed to memcpy. Since length is treated as an unsigned value, -1 becomes a massive positive number, causing a buffer overflow 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<= 0.9.2CVSS 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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Check FreeRADIUS versionRun 'radiusd -v' or 'freeradius -v' to display the version, or query the package manager with 'rpm -q freeradius' or 'dpkg -l | grep freeradius'Affected if Version returned is 0.9.2 or earlier
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Locate the rad_decode functionUse 'nm /path/to/radiusd | grep rad_decode' or 'strings /path/to/radiusd | grep rad_decode' to confirm the vulnerable function is present in the binaryAffected if The rad_decode symbol is found in the FreeRADIUS binary
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Identify use of tagged RADIUS attributesSearch configuration files (typically in /etc/raddb/ or /etc/freeradius/) for 'Tunnel-Password' or other tagged attributes using 'grep -r "Tunnel-Password" /etc/raddb/'Affected if Configuration files contain Tunnel-Password or other string attributes with tags (format: <tag>:value)
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Confirm the server accepts RADIUS requestsCheck if the FreeRADIUS service is running with 'ps aux | grep radiusd' or 'systemctl status freeradius' and review accounting/authentication logsAffected if The server is running and processing RADIUS requests containing the vulnerable attribute type
Environment is affected if FreeRADIUS version is 0.9.2 or earlier AND the server is configured to process tagged attributes like Tunnel-Password in RADIUS requests.
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 dataUpgrade FreeRADIUS to a version beyond 0.9.2 that contains the patched rad_decode function, or apply the specific patch that adds proper bounds checking before the memcpy call to prevent negative length values.
- Consultation3.0 h
- Implementation6.0 h
- Testing5.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2003-0967 — 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-2003-0967 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
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