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CVE-2017-15705 Detail

Description

A denial of service vulnerability was identified that exists in Apache SpamAssassin before 3.4.2. The vulnerability arises with certain unclosed tags in emails that cause markup to be handled incorrectly leading to scan timeouts. In Apache SpamAssassin, using HTML::Parser, we setup an object and hook into the begin and end tag event handlers In both cases, the "open" event is immediately followed by a "close" event - even if the tag *does not* close in the HTML being parsed. Because of this, we are missing the "text" event to deal with the object normally. This can cause carefully crafted emails that might take more scan time than expected leading to a Denial of Service. The issue is possibly a bug or design decision in HTML::Parser that specifically impacts the way Apache SpamAssassin uses the module with poorly formed html. The exploit has been seen in the wild but not believed to have been purposefully part of a Denial of Service attempt. We are concerned that there may be attempts to abuse the vulnerability in the future.


Severity



CVSS 3.x Severity and Metrics:

NIST CVSS score
NIST: NVD
Base Score:  5.3 MEDIUM
Vector:  CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L


NVD Analysts use publicly available information to associate vector strings and CVSS scores. We also display any CVSS information provided within the CVE List from the CNA.

Note: NVD Analysts have published a CVSS score for this CVE based on publicly available information at the time of analysis. The CNA has not provided a score within the CVE List.

References to Advisories, Solutions, and Tools

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Hyperlink Resource
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2019-08/msg00002.html
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/105347 Third Party Advisory  VDB Entry 
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2018:2916 Third Party Advisory 
https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/7f6a16bc0fd0fd5e67c7fd95bd655069a2ac7d1f88e42d3c853e601c%40%3Cannounce.apache.org%3E
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/11/msg00016.html Third Party Advisory 
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201812-07
https://usn.ubuntu.com/3811-1/ Third Party Advisory 
https://usn.ubuntu.com/3811-2/ Third Party Advisory 

Weakness Enumeration

CWE-ID CWE Name Source
CWE-20 Improper Input Validation cwe source acceptance level NIST  

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Change History

8 change records found show changes

Quick Info

CVE Dictionary Entry:
CVE-2017-15705
NVD Published Date:
09/17/2018
NVD Last Modified:
11/06/2023
Source:
Apache Software Foundation