CVE-2019-15961

Clam AntiVirus (ClamAV) Software Email Parsing Vulnerability

MEDIUM
6.5
CVSS Score
Published: January 15, 2020 at 07:05 PM UTC
Updated: June 17, 2026 at 02:21 AM UTC
4 products affected across 4 vendorsDebian LinuxUbuntu LinuxClamAV

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Severity
MEDIUM6.5
Exploit prediction
EPSS 3%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

A vulnerability in the email parsing module Clam AntiVirus (ClamAV) Software versions 0.102.0, 0.101.4 and prior could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial of service condition on an affected device. The vulnerability is due to inefficient MIME parsing routines that result in extremely long scan times of specially formatted email files. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted email file to an affected device. An exploit could allow the attacker to cause the ClamAV scanning process to scan the crafted email file indefinitely, resulting in a denial of service condition.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

v ≤ 0.101.4v ≤ 0.102.0v < 0.101.40.102.0
Affected range stops below 0.101.4, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet. What the record does show:

References (5)

Vendor Advisoryx_refsource_CISCOExploitIssue Tracking
https://bugzilla.clamav.net/show_bug.cgi?id=12380
Mailing Listx_refsource_MLISTThird Party Advisory
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/02/msg00016.html
Vendor Advisoryx_refsource_CISCOThird Party Advisory
https://quickview.cloudapps.cisco.com/quickview/bug/CSCvr56010
Vendor Advisoryx_refsource_GENTOOThird Party Advisory
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202003-46
Vendor Advisoryx_refsource_UBUNTUThird Party Advisory
https://usn.ubuntu.com/4230-2/

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitAutomatablePartial impact

SSVC signals action urgency (what to patch first), separate from CVSS which measures severity.

CVSS

Attack Vector
NETWORK
Complexity
LOW
Privileges
NONE
User Interaction
REQUIRED
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
NONE
Integrity
NONE
Availability
HIGH
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusMODIFIED
CWE
CWE-20CWE-400

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