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Kerberos 5Application · Mit

CVE-2011-0283

MEDIUM · 5.0 CVSS v2.0 Published 2011-02-10
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
The Key Distribution Center (KDC) in MIT Kerberos 5 (aka krb5) 1.9 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (NULL pointer dereference and daemon crash) via a malformed request packet that does not trigger a response packet.

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

The Key Distribution Center (KDC) in MIT Kerberos 5 version 1.9 contains a NULL pointer dereference vulnerability when processing malformed request packets. Remote attackers can send specially crafted requests that cause the KDC to crash without generating a response packet, resulting in denial of service for Kerberos authentication services.

MitigationUpgrade MIT Kerberos 5 to version 1.9.1 or later, which contains the fix for this vulnerability. Prior to patching, consider network segmentation or firewall rules to limit KDC exposure to untrusted networks.

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
Kerberos 5Application
Affected:= 1.9

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. Identify MIT Kerberos 5 installation
    Run 'krb5-config --version' or check package manager: 'rpm -q krb5-server' (RHEL/CentOS) or 'dpkg -l | grep -i krb5' (Debian/Ubuntu)
    Affected if Package is installed and version shows exactly 1.9
  2. Verify KDC component is running
    Run 'systemctl status krb5kdc' or 'service krb5kdc status' to check if the Key Distribution Center service is active
    Affected if KDC service is running - only active KDC instances can be exploited
  3. Confirm network exposure of KDC
    Run 'netstat -tulpn | grep :88' or 'ss -tulpn | grep :88' to check if Kerberos port 88 is listening on network interfaces
    Affected if KDC is listening on non-loopback IP addresses, making it reachable from network

Environment is affected only if MIT Kerberos 5 version 1.9 is installed, the KDC service is actively running, and the KDC port 88 is exposed to network traffic.

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

Upgrade MIT Kerberos 5 to version 1.9.1 or later, which contains the fix for this vulnerability. Prior to patching, consider network segmentation or firewall rules to limit KDC exposure to untrusted networks.

Fix this in Kerberos 5 Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation4.0 h
  • Implementation4.0 h
  • Testing4.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
14.0 hours of engineering $2,480
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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-2011-0283 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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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
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