Vulnerability Monitor

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CVE-2017-14461

A specially crafted email delivered over SMTP and passed on to Dovecot by MTA can trigger an out of bounds read resulting in potential sensitive information disclosure and denial of service. In order to trigger this vulnerability, an attacker needs to send a specially crafted email message to the server.

Security Impact Summary

This vulnerability carries a MEDIUM severity rating with a CVSS v3.1 score of 5.9, indicating it can be exploited remotely over the network but requires specific conditions to be met without requiring user interaction requiring only low-level privileges . The vulnerability impacts limited data confidentiality, and availability (service disruption) for affected systems. Impacting 3 products from dovecot, from debian, from ubuntu organizations running these solutions should prioritize assessment and patching.

Historical Context

First disclosed in 2018, this vulnerability was reported during a period defined by widespread IoT adoption challenges, mobile security concerns, and the emergence of advanced persistent threat (APT) techniques. Contemporary mitigation strategies focused on secure development practices and third-party component vetting.

Published

2018-03-02T15:29:00.210

Last Modified

2024-11-21T03:12:50.433

Status

Modified

Source

[email protected]

Severity

CVSSv3.0: 5.9 (MEDIUM)

CVSSv2 Vector

AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:P/I:N/A:P

Access Vector: NETWORK
Access Complexity: LOW
Authentication: SINGLE
Confidentiality Impact: PARTIAL
Integrity Impact: NONE
Availability Impact: PARTIAL

Exploitability Score

8.0

Impact Score

4.9

Weaknesses

Type: Secondary
CWE-125
Type: Primary
CWE-125
CWE-200

Affected Vendors & Products

Type	Vendor	Product	Version/Range	Vulnerable?
Application	dovecot	dovecot	2.2.33.2	Yes
Operating System	debian	debian_linux	8.0	Yes
Operating System	debian	debian_linux	9.0	Yes
Operating System	ubuntu	ubuntu	14.04	Yes
Operating System	ubuntu	ubuntu	16.04	Yes
Operating System	ubuntu	ubuntu	17.10	Yes

References

http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/103201 Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry ([email protected])
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/03/msg00036.html ([email protected])
https://talosintelligence.com/vulnerability_reports/TALOS-2017-0510 Third Party Advisory ([email protected])
https://usn.ubuntu.com/3587-1/ Patch, Third Party Advisory ([email protected])
https://usn.ubuntu.com/3587-2/ ([email protected])
https://www.debian.org/security/2018/dsa-4130 Third Party Advisory ([email protected])
https://www.dovecot.org/list/dovecot-news/2018-February/000370.html Issue Tracking, Vendor Advisory ([email protected])
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/103201 Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/03/msg00036.html (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://talosintelligence.com/vulnerability_reports/TALOS-2017-0510 Third Party Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://usn.ubuntu.com/3587-1/ Patch, Third Party Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://usn.ubuntu.com/3587-2/ (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://www.debian.org/security/2018/dsa-4130 Third Party Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://www.dovecot.org/list/dovecot-news/2018-February/000370.html Issue Tracking, Vendor Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)

How SecUtils Interprets This CVE

SecUtils normalizes and enriches National Vulnerability Database (NVD) records by standardizing vendor and product identifiers, aggregating vulnerability metadata from both NVD and MITRE sources, and providing structured context for security teams. For dovecot's affected products, we extract Common Platform Enumeration (CPE) data, Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) classifications, CVSS severity metrics, and reference data to enable rapid vulnerability prioritization and asset correlation. This record contains no exploit code, proof-of-concept instructions, or attack methodologies—only defensive intelligence necessary for patch management, risk assessment, and security operations.