Secunia

A vulnerability has been identified in Apache version 2.0.x prior to version 2.0.45, which can be exploited by malicious people to cause a DoS (Denial of Service) on a vulnerable webserver.

The vulnerability is caused by an exceptional handling error, which can lead to exhaustion of all available memory ressources. The problem is that Apache HTTP Server allocates 80 bytes of memory for each linefeed ("\n") encountered in a HTTP request without specifying an upper boundary.

A malicious person can exploit this by sending multiple HTTP request including large chunks of linefeeds to the webserver, which in the end causes the system to crash.

NOTE: Apache 2.0.45 also fixes another well-known issue. Several file descriptors are leaked to child processes, such as CGI scripts, which could consitute a security threat on servers running untrusted CGI scripts.

Solution
Update to version 2.0.45:
Further details available in Customer Area

Provided and/or discovered by
Denial of Service vulnerability:
David Endler

Leaked file descriptors:
Christian Kratzer and Bjoern Zeeb

Changelog
Further details available in Customer Area

Original Advisory
http://www.apache.org/dist/httpd/CHANGES_2.0

Other references
Further details available in Customer Area

Deep Links
Links available in Customer Area