Heartbeat Havoc: Unveiling Remote Vulnerabilities in Windows Network Load Balancing

This Black Hat conference talk delves into the security vulnerabilities of Windows Network Load Balancing (NLB), specifically focusing on its critical Heartbeat feature. Explore how this essential component, which allows servers to communicate status within a cluster, contains multiple zero-click vulnerabilities including integer overflows, race conditions, out-of-bounds read/write operations, memory leaks, use-after-free issues, and null pointer dereferences. Learn how attackers can exploit these flaws to achieve remote code execution or launch denial-of-service attacks against NLB clusters. The 33-minute presentation by security researchers b2ahex, Yifen Ma, Greenbamboo C, and Haotian Jiang also covers additional potential threats to NLB service stability, demonstrates vulnerability triggers, and provides practical mitigation strategies to protect mission-critical server infrastructures.