CVE-2014-6303
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 · uneditedThe Monitoring Administration pages in PNMsoft Sequence Kinetics before 7.7 do not properly detect recursion during entity expansion, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (resource consumption) via a crafted XML document containing a large number of nested entity references, a similar issue to CVE-2003-1564.
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 confidenceThe Monitoring Administration pages in PNMsoft Sequence Kinetics before version 7.7 fail to restrict recursive XML entity expansion, allowing attackers to submit crafted XML documents with deeply nested entity references (the 'billion laughs' attack pattern). This causes excessive CPU and memory consumption, resulting in denial of service.
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<= 7.5CVSS 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.
-
Verify PNMsoft Sequence Kinetics is installedCheck for the application in standard installation paths (e.g., C:\Program Files\PNMsoft or C:\inetpub\wwwroot\Sequence), or look for the Sequence Kinetics Windows service via services.mscAffected if The product is not present on the system
-
Determine the installed versionCheck the version information in the application's About page, installation directory (look for version.txt, readme, or assembly info), or the Windows service properties if deployed as a serviceAffected if The installed version is 7.5 or earlier (7.0, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, or 7.5)
-
Confirm Monitoring Administration interface is accessibleAttempt to access the Monitoring Administration web pages (typically at /Sequence/Monitoring or /MonitoringAdmin under the web application root) via browser or check IIS/Apache configuration for exposed Sequence Kinetics URLsAffected if The Monitoring Administration pages are publicly or internally accessible without authentication controls
-
Inspect XML parser configurationExamine the application's configuration files (web.config, app.config, or XML-related config files in the installation directory) for parser settings related to entity expansion limits, external entity processing, or DTD processingAffected if No XML entity expansion limits are configured, or external entity processing is enabled
You are affected if PNMsoft Sequence Kinetics version 7.5 or earlier is installed and the Monitoring Administration interface is accessible without proper XML parser restrictions configured.
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 to PNMsoft Sequence Kinetics 7.7 or later, which includes proper entity expansion limits. Alternatively, configure the XML parser to disable external entity processing and impose reasonable limits on entity expansion depth and total expansions.
- Consultation4.0 h
- Implementation8.0 h
- Testing4.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $5,120.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2014-6303 — 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-2014-6303 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
Be the first to add a field note for this CVE — a mitigation you’ve verified, a version caveat, or a link to a working fix. Sign in above to contribute.
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.
- 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
- No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data