CVE-2000-0179 is a vulnerability affecting HP OpenView OmniBack II versions 2.55, 3.0, and 3.1. This vulnerability allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition by opening a large number of connections to the service listening on TCP port 5555. OmniBack II is a backup and recovery software product used to manage data protection across enterprise environments. The vulnerability arises because the software does not properly handle excessive connection attempts, leading to resource exhaustion or service disruption. The attack requires no authentication and can be executed remotely over the network, making it relatively easy to exploit. However, it does not impact confidentiality or integrity, only availability. No patches are available for this vulnerability, and there are no known exploits in the wild, which may limit its current threat level. The CVSS score of 5.0 (medium severity) reflects the moderate impact and ease of exploitation without authentication. Given the age of the vulnerability (published in 2000), it primarily affects legacy systems that may still be in use in some environments.

For European organizations, the primary impact of this vulnerability is the potential disruption of backup and recovery operations managed by HP OpenView OmniBack II. A successful DoS attack could prevent backup jobs from completing, leading to gaps in data protection and increased risk of data loss in case of other failures or incidents. This could be particularly damaging for organizations with strict data retention and recovery requirements, such as financial institutions, healthcare providers, and critical infrastructure operators. The inability to perform backups could also affect compliance with regulations like GDPR, which mandates data integrity and availability safeguards. While the vulnerability does not allow data theft or modification, the loss of availability of backup services can have cascading effects on business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities.

Since no patch is available, European organizations should implement compensating controls to mitigate the risk. These include: 1) Network-level filtering and rate limiting on port 5555 to restrict the number of simultaneous connections from any single source or subnet, reducing the risk of resource exhaustion. 2) Deploying intrusion detection/prevention systems (IDS/IPS) to monitor and block suspicious connection patterns targeting OmniBack II services. 3) Segmentation of backup infrastructure networks to isolate OmniBack II servers from general user or internet traffic, limiting exposure. 4) If feasible, decommission or upgrade legacy OmniBack II installations to modern backup solutions that are actively supported and patched. 5) Regular monitoring of backup service availability and logs to detect early signs of DoS attempts. 6) Implement strict access control lists (ACLs) to allow only trusted management hosts to connect to port 5555. These measures will help reduce the attack surface and improve resilience against DoS attempts exploiting this vulnerability.