Skip to content
Fencer Intel
critical 9.8

CVE-2017-16844 in the critical feed json

Heap-based buffer overflow in the loadbuf function in formisc.c in formail in procmail 3.22 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of se…

published 2017-11-16 8 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2017-8018

cvss
9.8
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
12.2%
EPSS 12.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 96%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Heap-based buffer overflow in the loadbuf function in formisc.c in formail in procmail 3.22 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (application crash) or possibly execute arbitrary code via a crafted e-mail message because of a hardcoded realloc size, a different vulnerability than CVE-2014-3618.

Patch / fix

  • procmail Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 3.22-26

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2017-16844

  • procmail Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 3.22-21ubuntu0.2
  • procmail Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 3.22-25ubuntu0.16.04.1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2017-16844

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • procmail RHEL 7 3.22-36.el7_4.1

red hat advisories RHSA-2017:3269

  • procmail SLES for SAP 12 SP3, SLES for SAP 12 SP2, SLES for Raspberry Pi 12 SP2 +4 more 3.22-269.3.5
  • procmail SLES for SAP 11 SP4, SLES 11 SP4 3.22-240.8.3.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2018:0173-1SUSE-SU-2017:3231-1

  • procmail openSUSE Tumbleweed 3.22-277.3

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:11194-1

  • procmail CBL-Mariner 2.0, Azure Linux 3.0 3.22-53

azure linux advisories AZL-36982AZL-6803AZL-7332

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2017-16844 updated cvss 7.5

procmail: Heap-based buffer overflow in loadbuf function in formisc.c

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 procmail Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 procmail
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client Optional (v. 7) procmail 3.22-36.el7_4.1 Red Hat Enterprise Linux for ARM and IBM Power LE (POWER9) Server (v. 7) procmail 3.22-36.el7_4.1 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (v. 7) procmail 3.22-36.el7_4.1 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 7) procmail 3.22-36.el7_4.1
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2017:3269

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

12.20% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 96% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 9.8 CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 10.0 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-119 Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.