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CVE-2021-39272

22
FAUCET Score

CVE-2021-39272 describes a vulnerability in Fetchmail versions prior to 6.4.22, specifically affecting fedoraproject and fetchmail products. The flaw allows Fetchmail to fail in enforcing STARTTLS session encryption under certain conditions, such as with IMAP and PREAUTH. This medium-severity vulnerability (CVSS 5.9) has a network attack vector and high confidentiality impact, but requires high attack complexity. There is no evidence of active exploitation, public exploit code, or significant community discussion surrounding this CVE.

Impacted Technologies

VendorProductVersion(s)CPE
< 6.4.22CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:fetchmail:fetchmail:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
33CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:33:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
34CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:34:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
35CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:35:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

CVSS Data

CVSS version used by this source: 3.1

5.9MEDIUM

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
HIGH
Privileges Required
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality Impact
HIGH
Integrity Impact
NONE
Availability Impact
NONE
Exploitability Score
2.2
Impact Score
3.6
CvssVersion
3.1

Exploit Intelligence

EPSS Score
0.92%
Probability of exploitation in next 30 days
EPSS Percentile
56.8%
Percentile rank of EPSS score among Peer Group
As of 2026-07-27
Model: v2026.06.15
This CVE's current EPSS score of 0.0092 is in the 14th percentile among its peer group of 19,958 CVEs.

Social Chatter

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 Twitter, 0.0 Reddit, 0.0 Bluesky, 0.0 Mastodon, and 0.2 GitHub mentions.

Media Mentions

No media coverage found for this CVE.

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 InfoSec Media, 0.0 Vendor Blog, and 0.0 Security Researcher mentions.

Remediation

Patch Available

Vendor Patches (3)

microsoftpatch availablevia msrc
Product: 19480-16823Fixed in: 6.4.22-1
microsoftpatch availablevia msrc
Product: cbl2 fetchmail 6.4.22-1 on CBL Mariner 2.0Fixed in: 6.4.22-1
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8Fixed in: fetchmail-0:6.4.24-1.el8
View patch

Vendor Advisories (2)

microsoft2021-Aug/CVE-2021-39272Moderate

Fetchmail before 6.4.22 fails to enforce STARTTLS session encryption in some circumstances such as a certain situation with IMAP and PREAUTH.

Aug 10, 2021
redhatCVE-2021-39272Moderate

fetchmail: STARTTLS session encryption bypassing

Aug 10, 2021

References

lists.fedoraproject.org / archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/L3XJ6XLEJCEZCAM5LGGD6XBCC522QLG4
lists.fedoraproject.org / archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/VXMKSEHAQSEDCWZMAOJEGX3P3JW6QY6H
lists.fedoraproject.org / archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/ZYCYLL73NP7ALJWSDICIVSA47ZIXWSSA
nostarttls.secvuln.info
Third Party Advisory
security.gentoo.org / glsa/202209-14
Third Party Advisory
fetchmail.info / security.html
Vendor Advisory
openwall.com / lists/oss-security/2021/08/27/3
Mailing ListThird Party Advisory