Dovecot
CVE-2020-10957
HIGH
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A10:2025 - Mishandling of Exceptional Conditions
ASVS 5.0
V16 - Security Logging and Error Handling Null pointer safety, defensive checks
MITRE ATT&CK
1 technique across 1 tactic: Impact The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up. |
| Impact | CVSS score of 7.5 (HIGH). Attack characteristics: network attack vector, low complexity, no privileges required, no user interaction not required. Public proof-of-concept exploit code is available. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | A remote attacker could crash the application by dereferencing a null pointer by sending crafted requests to the affected application. No authentication is required to exploit this vulnerability. |
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Alert meAnalysisAI
In Dovecot before 2.3.10.1, unauthenticated sending of malformed parameters to a NOOP command causes a NULL Pointer Dereference and crash in submission-login, submission, or lmtp. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.5), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. Public exploit code available and no vendor patch available.
RemediationAI
No vendor patch is available at time of analysis. Monitor vendor advisories for updates. Check pointers before dereferencing. Use static analysis tools to detect null pointer paths.
Affects your stack
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Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.
Technical ContextAI · show details
This vulnerability is classified as NULL Pointer Dereference (CWE-476), which allows attackers to crash the application by dereferencing a null pointer. In Dovecot before 2.3.10.1, unauthenticated sending of malformed parameters to a NOOP command causes a NULL Pointer Dereference and crash in submission-login, submission, or lmtp. Affected products include: Dovecot. Version information: before 2.3.10.1.
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- Exploit and PoC references, threat intelligence from 22 sources
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Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Primary rating from NVD · only source for this CVE.
CVSS VectorNVD
DescriptionNVD
In Dovecot before 2.3.10.1, unauthenticated sending of malformed parameters to a NOOP command causes a NULL Pointer Dereference and crash in submission-login, submission, or lmtp.
Threat Intelligence Overview
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
A null pointer dereference occurs when a program attempts to access memory through a pointer that has been set to NULL (address 0x0).
Denial of Service attacks render applications or systems unavailable by overwhelming resources or triggering failure conditions.
Affected Products (CPE)NVD
In Dovecot before 2.2.36.4 and 2.3.x before 2.3.7.2 (and Pigeonhole before 0.5.7.2), protocol processing can fail for qu
In Dovecot before 2.3.11.3, sending a specially formatted RPA request will crash the auth service because a length of ze
In Dovecot before 2.3.11.3, sending a specially formatted NTLM request will crash the auth service because of an out-of-
In Dovecot before 2.3.11.3, uncontrolled recursion in submission, lmtp, and lda allows remote attackers to cause a denia
It was discovered that Dovecot before versions 2.2.36.1 and 2.3.4.1 incorrectly handled client certificates. Rated mediu
In Dovecot before 2.3.10.1, remote unauthenticated attackers can crash the lmtp or submission process by sending mail wi
In Dovecot before 2.3.10.1, a crafted SMTP/LMTP message triggers an unauthenticated use-after-free bug in submission-log
The IMAP and LMTP components in Dovecot 2.3.9 before 2.3.9.3 mishandle snippet generation when many characters must be r
An issue was discovered in the auth component in Dovecot 2.2 and 2.3 before 2.3.20. Rated high severity (CVSS 8.8), this
In Dovecot before 2.2.36.3 and 2.3.x before 2.3.5.1, a local attacker can cause a buffer overflow in the indexer-worker
The auth component in Dovecot before 2.2.27, when auth-policy is configured, allows a remote attackers to cause a denial
Unauthenticated remote attackers can disrupt authentication on OX Dovecot Pro servers by sending malformed base64 SASL d
GitHub PoC
Exploit-DB