CVE-2011-0281

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.0 v2.0)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 4.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2011-02-10 · updated 2026-06-16
Weakness: CWE-310

Description

The unparse implementation in the Key Distribution Center (KDC) in MIT Kerberos 5 (aka krb5) 1.6.x through 1.9, when an LDAP backend is used, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (file descriptor exhaustion and daemon hang) via a principal name that triggers use of a backslash escape sequence, as demonstrated by a \n sequence.

Affected products

MIT Kerberos: 5-1.6.3
MIT Kerberos 5: 1.6, 1.6.1, 1.6.2, 1.7, 1.7.1, 1.8 (+4)

References

http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2011-02/msg00004.html
http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/kerberos/2010-December/016800.html
http://secunia.com/advisories/43260
http://secunia.com/advisories/43273
http://secunia.com/advisories/43275
http://secunia.com/advisories/46397
http://securityreason.com/securityalert/8073
http://web.mit.edu/kerberos/advisories/MITKRB5-SA-2011-002.txt
http://www.mandriva.com/security/advisories?name=MDVSA-2011:024
http://www.mandriva.com/security/advisories?name=MDVSA-2011:025
http://www.redhat.com/support/errata/RHSA-2011-0199.html
http://www.redhat.com/support/errata/RHSA-2011-0200.html

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