News
Microsoft Acknowledges Problem with Services for Unix
- By Scott Bekker
- 07/25/2001
Microsoft Corp. this week patched a memory leak in the latest version of its Unix interoperability software that an attacker could exploit to take down Windows NT and Windows 2000 servers.
The patches for Services for Unix (SFU) 2.0 represent the 39th security bulletin out of Microsoft so far in 2001. Like many of the patches issued this year, the bulletin wraps up fixes for a couple of problems.
Services for Unix provides Windows-based implementations of common Unix tools and services and heterogeneous network management tools for administrators in mixed Windows/Unix environments.
Memory leaks in two SFU services, one that implements the Network File System (NFS) and one for the Telnet protocol, could be exploited in a denial-of-service attack, Microsoft acknowledged in the bulletin. Administrators targeted by such an attack would need to reboot to get their servers running properly again.
SFU 1.0 is not affected, nor are the standard Windows implementations for Telnet in Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 servers.
Microsoft notes that the vulnerabilities afford attackers no possibility to usurp administrative control over the server. Nonetheless, the company says system administrators using NFS or Telnet services provided in SFU 2.0 should install the patch, which causes SFU to correctly release memory.
The patch will be included in Services for Unix 3.0.
About the Author
Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.