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Fencer Intel
medium 4.3

CVE-2018-5161 json

Crafted message headers can cause a Thunderbird process to hang on receiving the message.

published 2018-06-11 8 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2018-16946

cvss
4.3
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
2.0%
EPSS 2.0% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 80%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Crafted message headers can cause a Thunderbird process to hang on receiving the message. This vulnerability affects Thunderbird ESR < 52.8 and Thunderbird < 52.8.

Patch / fix

  • Mozilla Thunderbird ESR 52.8
  • Mozilla Thunderbird 52.8
  • thunderbird Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 1:52.8.0-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2018-5161

  • thunderbird Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 1:52.8.0+build1-0ubuntu0.14.04.1
  • thunderbird Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 1:52.8.0+build1-0ubuntu0.16.04.1
  • thunderbird Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 1:52.8.0+build1-0ubuntu0.18.04.1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2018-5161

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

  • thunderbird RHEL 6 52.8.0-2.el6_9
  • thunderbird RHEL 7 52.8.0-1.el7_5

red hat advisories RHSA-2018:1726RHSA-2018:1725

  • MozillaThunderbird openSUSE Tumbleweed 91.1.1-1.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:10601-1

  • thunderbird Arch Linux 52.8.0-1

arch linux advisories AVG-707

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-2018-5161 updated cvss 4.3

Mozilla: Hang via malformed headers

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client (v. 7) thunderbird 52.8.0-1.el7_5
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2018:1725
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (v. 6) thunderbird 52.8.0-2.el6_9
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2018:1726
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux for ARM and IBM Power LE (POWER9) Server Optional (v. 7) thunderbird 52.8.0-1.el7_5
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2018:1725
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Optional (v. 6) thunderbird 52.8.0-2.el6_9
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2018:1726
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Optional (v. 7) thunderbird 52.8.0-1.el7_5
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2018:1725
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 6) thunderbird 52.8.0-2.el6_9
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2018:1726
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 7) thunderbird 52.8.0-1.el7_5
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2018:1725
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 thunderbird
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

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

1.98% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 80% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 4.3 CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
NVD 2.0 4.3 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

Affected products

  • Mozilla Thunderbird ESR
  • Mozilla Thunderbird

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-20 Improper Input Validation

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.