CVE-2014-9116

Exp

The write_one_header function in mutt 1.5.23 does not properly handle newline characters at the beginning of a header, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via a header with an empty body, which triggers a heap-based buffer overflow in the mutt_substrdup function.

Published: 2014-12-02 Last update: 2026-05-06 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2014-9116 is rated High Exploit Risk (66.5/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 3.52%). 3 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-2014-9116

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

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2014-9116

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 2026-02-28 2.62% 3.52% +0.90%
2 2025-07-13 1.63% 2.62% +0.99%
3 2025-07-12 — 1.63% —

Full EPSS history (14 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2014-9116

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.0 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/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:N)
No confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:N)
No integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:P)
Partial availability impact.
 10.0 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2014-9116

OS Trackers for CVE-2014-9116

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2014-9116 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (mutt), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2014-9116
gentoo normal CVE-2014-9116: 1 GLSA(s) (201701-04), 1 atom(s) (mail-client/mutt); latest impact normal. https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=CVE-2014-9116
redhat low — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2014-9116
suse medium CVE-2014-9116 severity moderate: SUSE including 23 source package names (mutt, mutt-1.10.1-3.3.4, …), 97 product×package rows across 58 product lines (Image SLES12-SP5-Azure-SAP-BYOS, Image SLES12-SP5-Azure-SAP-On-Demand, … (58 product lines)): Fixed 66, Known Not Affected 31. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2014-9116/
ubuntu medium CVE-2014-9116 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (mutt), 5 status rows across 5 suites (lucid, precise, trusty, upstream, utopic): released 4, needed 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2014-9116

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2014-9116

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
suse linux_enterprise_desktop 12 cpe:2.3:o:suse:linux_enterprise_desktop:12:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
suse suse_linux_enterprise_server 12 cpe:2.3:o:suse:suse_linux_enterprise_server:12:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
mutt mutt 1.5.23 cpe:2.3:a:mutt:mutt:1.5.23:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 7.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:7.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
mageia mageia 4.0 cpe:2.3:o:mageia:mageia:4.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2014-9116

URL Tags
http://advisories.mageia.org/MGASA-2014-0509.html Third Party Advisory
http://dev.mutt.org/trac/ticket/3716 Issue Tracking Vendor Advisory
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2015-01/msg00002.html Third Party Advisory
http://www.debian.org/security/2014/dsa-3083 Third Party Advisory
http://www.mandriva.com/security/advisories?name=MDVSA-2014:245 Broken Link
http://www.mandriva.com/security/advisories?name=MDVSA-2015:078 Broken Link
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2014/11/27/5 Exploit Mailing List Third Party Advisory
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2014/11/27/9 Mailing List Third Party Advisory
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/71334 Third Party Advisory VDB Entry
http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1031266 Third Party Advisory VDB Entry
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=771125 Exploit Issue Tracking
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1168463 Exploit Issue Tracking
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201701-04
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