Patch Available for 'Unicast Service Race Condition' Vulnerability

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Originally posted: September 06, 2000

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Summary
Issue
Affected Software Versions
Patch Availability
More Information
Obtaining Support on this Issue
Revisions

Summary

Microsoft has released a patch that eliminates a security vulnerability in Microsoft® Windows Media™ Services. The vulnerability could allow a malicious user to prevent an affected server from providing useful service.

Issue

If a client sends a particular type of malformed request to a Windows Media server, it could induce a race condition. Once the server has been put into such a state, subsequent requests—even ones that would normally be legitimate—could cause the Windows Media Unicast Service to fail. If this happened, any ongoing sessions would be lost, and the server would stop providing unicast streaming media services.

An affected server could be put back into service by restarting the Unicast Service. The vulnerability would not cause any data loss, nor would it enable the malicious user to usurp any administrative privileges on the machine.

Affected Software Versions

  • Microsoft Windows Media Services 4.0

  • Microsoft Windows Media Services 4.1

Patch Availability

Microsoft Windows Media Services 4.1

Click here to copy WMSU27678.EXE to your computer

Note: Customers using Windows Media Services 4.0 should upgrade to Windows Media Services 4.1, located at https://download.microsoft.com/download/winmediatech40/Update/4.1/WIN98/EN-US/wmserver.exe and then apply the above patch.

More Information

Please see the following references for more information related to this issue.

Obtaining Support on this Issue

This is a fully supported patch. Information on contacting Microsoft Product Support Services is available at https://support.microsoft.com/support/contact/default.asp.

Revisions

September 06, 2000: Bulletin Created.

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