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Fencer Intel
medium 5.3

CVE-2021-38373 json

In KDE KMail 19.12.3 (aka 5.13.3), the SMTP STARTTLS option is not honored (and cleartext messages are sent) unless "Server requires authen…

published 5y ago modified 4mo ago also EUVD-2021-24826

cvss
5.3
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.5%
EPSS 0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 44%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

In KDE KMail 19.12.3 (aka 5.13.3), the SMTP STARTTLS option is not honored (and cleartext messages are sent) unless "Server requires authentication" is checked.

Patch / fix

  • ksmtp Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 21.12.3-2

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2021-38373

  • ksmtp Arch Linux 21.12.0-1

arch linux advisories AVG-2274

Is CVE-2021-38373 in your stack? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.

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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-2021-38373 updated cvss 6.5

kmail: STARTTLS is ignored when "Server requires authentication" not checked in UI

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 kdepim, kdepim-libs, kdepim3-libs Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 kdepim, kdepim-libs
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”

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

0.53% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 44% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 5.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
NVD 2.0 3.5 AV:N/AC:M/Au:S/C:P/I:N/A:N

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-77 Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in a Command
  • CWE-319 Cleartext Transmission of Sensitive Information

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.