# CVE-2017-9732: Denial of service in n/a

> Remote attackers can cause memory exhaustion in Kerberised NetCat, leading to denial of service without authentication.

- **Severity:** High 7.5 (`CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 20 Dec 2018
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-wmpq-8mxr-7pxx

## What is CVE-2017-9732?

CVE-2017-9732 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 20 Dec 2018. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

The read_packet function in knc (Kerberised NetCat) before 1.11-1 is vulnerable to denial of service (memory exhaustion) that can be exploited remotely without authentication, possibly affecting another services running on the targeted host.

Weakness: CWE-400 (Uncontrolled Resource Consumption)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2017-9732?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Secure-Endpoints Kerberised Netcat.

## How do I fix CVE-2017-9732?

No fix has been published for CVE-2017-9732 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2017-9732 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2017-9732 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2017-9732 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2017-9732 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 20 Dec 2018. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2017-9732 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: n/a. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-9732/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-9732/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2017-9732
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2017-9732
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2017-9732

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From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-9732/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.