Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
CVE-2002-0518 is an old FreeBSD network-stack denial-of-service issue. A remote attacker could crash FreeBSD 4.5 or earlier systems by triggering flaws in TCP SYN cache/cookie handling. The main business risk is outage of legacy FreeBSD hosts exposed to untrusted network traffic.
Executive priority
Treat as a legacy exposure cleanup item unless FreeBSD 4.5 or earlier systems remain reachable. If such hosts support critical services, prioritize remediation because a remote crash can create service outages.
Technical view
FreeBSD 4.5 and earlier syncache/syncookie TCP mechanisms can dereference a null pointer for TCP options after syncookie acceptance, or leave a stale inpcb pointer when a listener process is killed and restarted on the same socket. The documented impact is remote denial of service via crash.
Likely exposure
Exposure is most likely on legacy FreeBSD 4.5 or earlier systems accepting TCP connections from untrusted networks. Modern supported FreeBSD versions are not identified as affected in the provided sources.
Exploitation context
The source bundle does not show CISA KEV listing, active exploitation, public exploit availability, CVSS, or vendor advisory details. The described attack is remote denial of service, not code execution or data theft.
Researcher notes
Evidence is limited to CVE record data and the CVE List entry. No CVSS, CWE, advisory reference, patch identifier, or exploitation evidence is included in the provided sources. Avoid assuming broader FreeBSD impact beyond 4.5 and earlier.
Mitigation direction
- Inventory systems for FreeBSD 4.5 or earlier.
- Prioritize retiring or upgrading affected legacy hosts.
- Check FreeBSD vendor guidance for the correct fixed or supported release path.
- Restrict untrusted TCP access to affected systems where possible.
- Place critical legacy services behind filtering or protective network controls.
Validation and detection
- Confirm operating system version on internet-facing and internal FreeBSD hosts.
- Identify services accepting TCP connections on affected hosts.
- Review crash history for unexplained kernel panics or TCP-related failures.
- Verify whether affected hosts are still business-critical.
- Document compensating controls limiting untrusted network access.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.
CVE-2002-0518 mapping review
Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.
Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- Unknown
- CVSS
- Not scored
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
CVSS and timeline data
No CVSS vectors or timeline events were available in the normalized CVE source material.
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.