fetchmail 6.3.5 and 6.3.6 before 6.3.6-rc4, when refusing a message delivered via the mda option, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via unknown vectors that trigger a NULL pointer dereference when calling the (1) ferror or (2) fflush functions.
Conclusion & alert: CVE-2006-5974 is rated Moderate Risk (57.2/100): CVSS High severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 3.79%). Mandatory action: Review affected assets and schedule remediation.
Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.
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 | 2026-06-15 | 13.76% | 3.79% | -9.97% |
| 2 | 2026-02-02 | 9.51% | 13.76% | +4.25% |
| 3 | 2025-08-28 | — | 9.51% | — |
Full EPSS history (13 records total)
CVSS metrics for this CVE.
| Base score | Version | Severity | Vector | Exploitability | Impact | Score source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7.8 | 2.0 | HIGH |
|
10.0 | 6.9 | [email protected] |
| vendor | priority | summary | link |
|---|---|---|---|
alpine
|
— | CVE-2006-5974: no source package rows; 0 state rows across 0 repos (none); fixed 0, open 0. | https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2006-5974 |
debian
|
low | CVE-2006-5974 low priority: Debian including 1 source packages (fetchmail), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. | https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2006-5974 |
gentoo
|
normal | CVE-2006-5974: 1 GLSA(s) (200701-13), 1 atom(s) (net-mail/fetchmail); latest impact normal. | https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=CVE-2006-5974 |
redhat
|
— | — | https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2006-5974 |
suse
|
high | CVE-2006-5974 severity important: SUSE including 7 source package names (fetchmail-6.3.8.90-13.16.1, fetchmail-6.3.8.90-13.20.19.1, …), 11 product×package rows across 6 product lines (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP1, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2, … (6 product lines)): Fixed 11. | https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2006-5974/ |
ubuntu
|
medium | CVE-2006-5974 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (fetchmail), 4 status rows across 4 suites (dapper, edgy, feisty, upstream): not-affected 2, needs-triage 1, released 1. | https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2006-5974 |
Not vulnerable. This issue does not affect the versions of fetchmail distributed with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1, 3, or 4.
| Vendor | Product | Version | Raw CPE |
|---|---|---|---|
| fetchmail | fetchmail | 6.3.5 | cpe:2.3:a:fetchmail:fetchmail:6.3.5:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| fetchmail | fetchmail | 6.3.6 | cpe:2.3:a:fetchmail:fetchmail:6.3.6:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| fetchmail | fetchmail | 6.3.6 | cpe:2.3:a:fetchmail:fetchmail:6.3.6:rc2:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| fetchmail | fetchmail | 6.3.6 | cpe:2.3:a:fetchmail:fetchmail:6.3.6:rc3:*:*:*:*:*:* |