CVE-1999-1537
MediumExploitation Probability (EPSS)
Very high risk94th percentile - higher than 94% of all known CVEs
Summary
IIS 3.x and 4.x does not distinguish between pages requiring encryption and those that do not, allowing remote attackers to cause a denial of service (resource exhaustion) via SSL requests to the HTTPS port for normally unencrypted files.
Risk Assessment
Attackers can exploit this vulnerability to overload the server, leading to its unavailability for users.
Recommendation
It is recommended to upgrade to a newer version of IIS that improves SSL request handling and to implement restrictions on the HTTPS port.
Original NVD description (English source)
IIS 3.x and 4.x does not distinguish between pages requiring encryption and those that do not, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (resource exhaustion) via SSL requests to the HTTPS port for normally unencrypted files, which will cause IIS to perform extra work to send the files over SSL.