CVE-2024-49394 | Mutt: neomutt: in-reply-to email header field it not protected by cryptograpic signing

In mutt and neomutt the In-Reply-To email header field is not protected by cryptographic signing which allows an attacker to reuse an unencrypted but signed email message to impersonate the original sender.

Published: 2024-11-12 Last update: 2024-11-14 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Analyzed，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2024-49394 is rated Low Risk (26.8/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.05%). Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

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

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2024-49394

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 2025-07-29 0.05% 0.05% +0.01%
2 2024-11-12 — 0.05% —

Full EPSS history (2 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2024-49394

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.3 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N 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:L)
Attackers could change some data, but it’s limited—not everything goes.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 3.9 1.4 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2024-49394

OS Trackers for CVE-2024-49394

vendor priority summary link
debian unimportant CVE-2024-49394 unimportant priority: Debian including 2 source packages (mutt, neomutt), 10 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): open 7, resolved 3. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2024-49394
redhat low — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2024-49394
suse medium CVE-2024-49394 severity moderate: SUSE including 7 source package names (mutt, mutt-doc, …), 71 product×package rows across 30 product lines (SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 12 SP5, SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP2-LTSS, … (30 product lines)): Will Not Fix 67, Fixed 4. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2024-49394/
ubuntu low CVE-2024-49394 low priority: Ubuntu including 2 source packages (mutt, neomutt), 17 status rows across 9 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, upstream, xenial): ignored 10, released 4, not-affected 2, DNE 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2024-49394

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2024-49394

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
mutt mutt — cpe:2.3:a:mutt:mutt:-:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
neomutt neomutt — cpe:2.3:a:neomutt:neomutt:-:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat enterprise_linux 8.0 cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux:8.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat enterprise_linux 9.0 cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux:9.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2024-49394

cvelogic Threat Intelligence