Executive brief
A vulnerability in the RPC portmapper service allows remote attackers to disrupt network services. By spoofing their identity, attackers can unregister legitimate services or register fake ones, leading to a denial of service for users and applications that rely on these network connections. This can result in the failure of critical system functions and internal communication tools.
Technical details
The RPC portmapper service contains a vulnerability that allows for unauthorized registration or unregistration of RPC services. An attacker can exploit this by sending requests with a spoofed source IP address, such as the localhost address (127.0.0.1), to bypass simple source-based authentication checks. This allows the attacker to unregister legitimate services, causing a denial of service, or to register malicious services to intercept or spoof RPC traffic. The attack is reachable over the network and does not require authentication. This issue is historically significant in early Unix-like operating systems and network service implementations.
Affected products
- Generic RPC portmapper
Timeline
- 1997-07-01: disclosed