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CVE-2003-0540

33
FAUCET Score

CVE-2003-0540 describes a denial-of-service vulnerability in Postfix 1.1.12 and earlier, affecting various Linux distributions. Remote attackers can exploit malformed envelope addresses containing the ".!" string in MAIL FROM or Errors-To headers, or in RCPT TO with a valid MAIL FROM, to cause nqmgr or an SMTP listener instance to lock up. This vulnerability has a CVSS score of 5.0 (AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P), indicating a network-exploitable, low-complexity attack leading to partial availability impact. While not actively exploited in the wild and not on the KEV catalog, public exploit code exists on ExploitDB, though there is no evidence of community discussion or media coverage.

Impacted Technologies

VendorProductVersion(s)CPE
1.0.21CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:wietse_venema:postfix:1.0.21:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
1.1.11CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:wietse_venema:postfix:1.1.11:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
1.1.12CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:wietse_venema:postfix:1.1.12:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
1999-09-06CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:wietse_venema:postfix:1999-09-06:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
1999-12-31CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:wietse_venema:postfix:1999-12-31:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

CVSS Data

CVSS version used by this source: 2.0

5.0MEDIUM

AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

Confidentiality Impact
NONE
Integrity Impact
NONE
Availability Impact
PARTIAL
Access Vector
NETWORK
Access Complexity
LOW
Authentication
NONE
Exploitability Score
10.0
Impact Score
2.9
CvssVersion
2.0

Exploit Intelligence

EPSS Score
21.26%
Probability of exploitation in next 30 days
EPSS Percentile
97.3%
Percentile rank of EPSS score among Peer Group
As of 2026-07-24
Model: v2026.06.15
ExploitDB: EDB-22981 · Aug 4, 2003
This CVE's current EPSS score of 0.2126 is in the 97th percentile among its peer group of 23,684 CVEs.

Social Chatter

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 Twitter, 0.0 Reddit, 0.1 Bluesky, 0.0 Mastodon, and 0.4 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 (4)

debianpatch availablevia nvd_reference
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Linux 7.3
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Linux 8.0
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Linux 9
View patch

Vendor Advisories (1)

redhatCVE-2003-0540

security flaw

Aug 3, 2003

References

distro.conectiva.com.br / atualizacoes
lists.grok.org.uk / pipermail/full-disclosure/2003-August/007693.html
marc.info
marc.info
secunia.com / advisories/9433
oval.cisecurity.org / repository/search/definition/oval%3Aorg.mitre.oval%3Adef%3A544
debian.org / security/2003/dsa-363
PatchVendor Advisory
kb.cert.org / vuls/id/895508
US Government Resource
linuxsecurity.com / advisories/engarde_advisory-3517.html
mandriva.com / security/advisories
novell.com / linux/security/advisories/2003_033_postfix.html
redhat.com / support/errata/RHSA-2003-251.html
PatchVendor Advisory
securityfocus.com / bid/8333