CVE-2005-0806 in Evolution
Summary
by MITRE
Evolution 2.0.3 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (application crash or hang) via crafted messages, possibly involving charsets in attachment filenames.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 06/01/2019
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2005-0806 affects Evolution 2.0.3, a widely used email client application that was prevalent in enterprise and personal computing environments during that time period. This security flaw represents a significant concern for organizations relying on email communication systems, as it exposes the application to potential disruption through remote exploitation. The vulnerability specifically targets the application's handling of email messages that contain crafted content, particularly those involving character set specifications within attachment filenames. This type of vulnerability falls under the category of denial of service attacks, where malicious actors can deliberately cause the target application to malfunction or become unresponsive.
The technical nature of this vulnerability stems from the application's insufficient input validation mechanisms when processing email messages containing specially crafted attachment filenames. When Evolution encounters such malformed data, particularly in the context of character encoding specifications within filenames, the application fails to properly handle the unexpected input and subsequently crashes or becomes unresponsive. This flaw demonstrates a classic buffer overflow or improper input handling vulnerability that allows attackers to manipulate the application's processing logic through carefully constructed malicious payloads. The vulnerability's impact is particularly concerning because it can be exploited remotely without requiring any authentication or privileged access to the target system, making it an attractive attack vector for malicious actors seeking to disrupt email services.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple application disruption, potentially affecting business continuity and communication workflows within organizations that depend on Evolution for email management. When the application crashes or hangs, users lose access to their email functionality, which can result in significant productivity losses and communication delays. In enterprise environments where email serves as a critical business communication channel, such a vulnerability could lead to substantial operational disruption and financial impact. The remote exploitation capability means that attackers can target vulnerable systems from anywhere on the network, making it difficult for organizations to contain or prevent the attack. This vulnerability also highlights the importance of proper input sanitization and validation in email processing applications, as the flaw occurs during the normal processing of email content rather than through specialized attack vectors.
Organizations should implement immediate mitigations including updating to the latest available version of Evolution that contains patches for this vulnerability, as well as implementing network-based filtering mechanisms to detect and block suspicious email traffic. The vulnerability's classification aligns with CWE-129, which addresses improper validation of input boundaries, and it maps to ATT&CK technique T1499.004 for network denial of service attacks. Additional defensive measures should include implementing email filtering solutions that can identify and quarantine suspicious attachments, establishing monitoring protocols to detect application crashes or hangs, and conducting regular vulnerability assessments to identify similar issues in other email client applications. System administrators should also consider implementing intrusion detection systems that can monitor for patterns consistent with exploitation attempts targeting this specific vulnerability, as well as maintaining detailed logs of application behavior to aid in forensic analysis if incidents occur.