Microsoft Windows ME Security Patch: Malformed IPX NMPI Packet Vulnerability 10-11-00

The Microsoft IPX/SPX protocol implementation (NWLink) includes an NMPI (Name Management Protocol on IPX) listener that will reply to any requesting network address. The NMPI listener software does not filter the requesting computers network address correctly, and will therefore reply to a network broadcast address. Such a reply would in turn cause other IPX NMPI listener programs to also reply. This sequence of broadcast replies could generate a large amount of unnecessary network traffic. A machine that crashed due to this vulnerability could be put back into service by rebooting.IPX is not installed by default in Windows ME. Even when IPX is installed, a malicious user’s ability to exploit this vulnerability would depend on whether he could deliver a malformed NMPI packet to an affected machine. Routers frequently are configured to drop IPX packets, and if such a router lay between the malicious user and an affected machine, he could not attack it. Routers on the Internet, as a rule, do not forward IPX packets, and this would tend to protect intranets from outside attack, as well as protecting machines connected to the Internet via dial-up connections. The most likely scenario in which this vulnerability could be exploited would be one in which a malicious user on an intranet would attack affected machines on the same intranet, or one in which a malicious user on the Internet attacked affected machines on his cable modem or DSL subnet.