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- Many systems run a service called "chargen" on port 19. It simply
- generates a never-ending stream of characters.
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- If an MSIE or Lynx user connects to a chargen, the browser will act as
- though viewing a file of infinite length. This has caused a modem
- connection to drop using MSIE, and slowed a Linux system using lynx to a
- crawl due to exhaustion of memory. Both processes were aborted before any
- further damage was caused.
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- A URL such as http://localhost:19 could cause the "flooding" damage to a
- system running lynx and chargen to occur almost instantly, because the
- characters would of course come at a much higher speed.
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- The CHARGEN service has other security implications and should be turned
- off in normal system operation.
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- You can also create a serios DOS attack when this is combined with a proxy
- server. Using the URL:
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- http://some.proxy.host/http://some.host.on.the.local.lan:19/
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- can bring some machines to a screaming halt.
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- Even simple HTML can cause problems. This one is great with NT web client users:
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- <IMG src="locahost:153" alt="" height=1 width=1 align=left>
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