CVE-2020-16118

Exp

In GNOME Balsa before 2.6.0, a malicious server operator or man in the middle can trigger a NULL pointer dereference and client crash by sending a PREAUTH response to imap_mbox_connect in libbalsa/imap/imap-handle.c.

Published: 2020-07-29 Last update: 2026-06-16 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2020-16118 is rated High Exploit Risk (74/100): CVSS High severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 2.05%). 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). EPSS rose +1.47% over the last day, indicating growing attacker interest. 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-2020-16118

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

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2020-16118

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 0.58% 2.05% +1.47%
2 2026-03-05 0.45% 0.58% +0.13%
3 2025-11-21 — 0.45% —

Full EPSS history (13 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2020-16118

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.5 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
 3.9 3.6 [email protected]
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-2020-16118

OS Trackers for CVE-2020-16118

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2020-16118 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (balsa), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2020-16118
suse medium CVE-2020-16118 severity moderate: SUSE including 4 source package names (balsa-2.5.5-bp151.4.3.1, balsa-2.5.5-lp151.3.3.1, balsa-lang-2.5.5-bp151.4.3.1, balsa-lang-2.5.5-lp151.3.3.1), 4 product×package rows across 2 product lines (SUSE Package Hub 15 SP1, openSUSE Leap 15.1): Fixed 4. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2020-16118/
ubuntu low CVE-2020-16118 low priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (balsa), 16 status rows across 16 suites (bionic, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): not-affected 12, needs-triage 2, DNE 1, released 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2020-16118

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2020-16118

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
gnome balsa < 2.6.0 cpe:2.3:a:gnome:balsa:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
opensuse backports_sle 15.0 cpe:2.3:a:opensuse:backports_sle:15.0:sp1:*:*:*:*:*:*
opensuse leap 15.1 cpe:2.3:o:opensuse:leap:15.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2020-16118

cvelogic Threat Intelligence