CVE-2004-2771

Exp

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.

Published: 2014-12-24 Last update: 2026-05-06 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2004-2771 is rated High Exploit Risk (73.8/100): CVSS High severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 2.88%). 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2004-2771

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2004-2771

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-04-12 4.30% 2.88% -1.42%
2 2026-04-11 2.01% 4.30% +2.30%
3 2025-10-26 — 2.01% —

Full EPSS history (18 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2004-2771

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.5 2.0 HIGH
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P Click to expand
Access vector (AV:N)
Can be exploited remotely over network reachability.
Access complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and predictable.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:P)
Partial confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:P)
Partial integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:P)
Partial availability impact.
 10.0 6.4 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2004-2771

OS Trackers for CVE-2004-2771

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2004-2771 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (bsd-mailx), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2004-2771
gentoo normal CVE-2004-2771: 1 GLSA(s) (201804-06), 1 atom(s) (mail-client/mailx); latest impact normal. https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=CVE-2004-2771
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2004-2771
suse high — https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2004-2771/
ubuntu medium CVE-2004-2771 medium priority: Ubuntu including 2 source packages (bsd-mailx, heirloom-mailx), 20 status rows across 10 suites (lucid, precise, trusty, upstream, utopic, vivid, wily, xenial, yakkety, zesty): not-affected 11, DNE 3, ignored 2, needs-triage 2, released 2. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2004-2771

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2004-2771

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
oracle linux 6 cpe:2.3:o:oracle:linux:6:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
oracle linux 7 cpe:2.3:o:oracle:linux:7:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat enterprise_linux 6.0 cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux:6.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat enterprise_linux 7.0 cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux:7.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
bsd_mailx_project bsd_mailx <= 8.1.2 cpe:2.3:a:bsd_mailx_project:bsd_mailx:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
heirloom mailx <= 12.5 cpe:2.3:a:heirloom:mailx:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2004-2771

cvelogic Threat Intelligence