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Fencer Vulns
high 7.5

CVE-2004-2771 json

The expand function in fio.c in Heirloom mailx 12.5 and earlier and BSD mailx 8.1.2 and earlier allows remote attackers to execute arbitrar…

published 2014-12-24 11 y ago modified 2026-09-23 46 d ago also EUVD-2004-2761

cvss
7.5
version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
6.9%
EPSS 6.9% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 94%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

The expand function in fio.c in Heirloom mailx 12.5 and earlier and BSD mailx 8.1.2 and earlier allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands via shell metacharacters in an email address.

Patch / fix

  • bsd-mailx Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 8.1.2-0.20071201cvs-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2004-2771

  • heirloom-mailx Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 12.5-2+deb7u1build0.14.04.1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2004-2771

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • mailx RHEL 6 12.4-8.el6_6
  • mailx RHEL 7 12.5-12.el7_0

red hat advisories RHSA-2014:1999

  • mailx openSUSE Tumbleweed 12.5-24.4

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:10561-1

  • mailx Azure Linux 3.0 12.5-36
  • mailx CBL-Mariner 2.0 12.5-34

azure linux advisories AZL-36961AZL-6676AZL-7286

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2004-2771 updated cvss 3.6

mailx: command execution flaw

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 mailx
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client (v. 7) mailx 12.5-12.el7_0 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ComputeNode (v. 7) mailx 12.5-12.el7_0 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (v. 6) mailx 12.4-8.el6_6 Red Hat Enterprise Linux HPC Node (v. 6) mailx 12.4-8.el6_6 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (v. 6) mailx 12.4-8.el6_6 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (v. 7) mailx 12.5-12.el7_0
    +2 more products
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 6) mailx 12.4-8.el6_6 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 7) mailx 12.5-12.el7_0
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2014:1999

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

6.86% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 94% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • bugs.debian.org https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=278748 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 2.0 7.5 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-20 Improper Input Validation

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.