Vulnerability in Mutt (CVE-2021-3181)
Summary
Vulnerability in Mutt (CVE-2021-3181). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
Original description
The description as published by the source.
rfc822.c in Mutt through 2.0.4 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (mailbox unavailability) by sending email messages with sequences of semicolon characters in RFC822 address fields (aka terminators of empty groups). A small email message from the attacker can cause large memory consumption, and the victim may then be unable to see email messages from other persons.
Auto-generated summary
Assembled by SecPulse from the source data (CVSS, CWE, affected versions) using templates — no AI involved. Check the original description and references below for exact details.
A vulnerability tracked as CVE-2021-3181 has been found in Mutt.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
What to do: apply the vendor's official patched release.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "Mutt CVE-2021-3181" on the vendor's site.
CVE-2021-3181 (Mutt)
Attack vector: remote (network-reachable) / unauthenticated
Plan: 1) Audit SBOM/dependencies, 2) Stage→prod upgrade, 3) Add WAF/proxy monitoring on affected endpoints, 4) Hunt IOCs in logs.
Refs: see the GHSA / vendor advisory / patched release linked on this page.
A vulnerability (unclassified) exists in Mutt.
Check the vendor advisory for the affected versions of Mutt.
Severity: ?. Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
Update to the patched release per vendor advisory.
Until the patch is applied: disable the affected feature, apply WAF rules, or restrict access via network ACLs.
Search webserver/proxy logs for unusual request patterns matching this CVE's known IOCs. Run grep -r 'Mutt' . against your dependency files (package-lock.json, requirements.txt, go.sum) to find affected services.
Response actions
Concrete steps and command examples for SOC/SRE teams to execute in order
-
1Identify exposure identify
grep -r 'Mutt' . | grep -v node_modulesリポジトリと本番環境の依存ファイル (package-lock.json / requirements.txt / go.sum / Gemfile.lock 等) で
Muttを grep し、稼働しているサービス・バージョンを把握する。 -
2Post-deployment verification verify
Confirm patched version is live in productionパッチ適用後、ステージングで PoC または同等の悪用パターンを再現して脆弱性が閉じたことを確認。本番ではアクセスログ・WAF でアラート再発が無いか継続監視。
References
- advisory openwall.com
- advisory openwall.com
- advisory gitlab.com
- advisory lists.debian.org
- advisory security.gentoo.org
- advisory debian.org
- patch gitlab.com
- patch gitlab.com
- patch gitlab.com
- web lists.fedoraproject.org
- web lists.fedoraproject.org