Vulnerability Database

327,594

Total vulnerabilities in the database

CVE-2008-5514

Off-by-one error in the rfc822_output_char function in the RFC822BUFFER routines in the University of Washington (UW) c-client library, as used by the UW IMAP toolkit before imap-2007e and other applications, allows context-dependent attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via an e-mail message that triggers a buffer overflow.

  • Published: Dec 23, 2008
  • Updated: Nov 9, 2025
  • CVE: CVE-2008-5514
  • Severity: Low
  • Exploit:

CVSS v2:

  • Severity: Low
  • Score: 4.3
  • AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

CWEs:

Software From Fixed in
university_of_washington / imap 2002 2002.x
university_of_washington / imap 2006e 2006e.x
university_of_washington / imap 2004b 2004b.x
university_of_washington / imap 2004d 2004d.x
university_of_washington / imap 2004f 2004f.x
university_of_washington / imap 2006a 2006a.x
university_of_washington / imap 2002d 2002d.x
university_of_washington / imap 2002f 2002f.x
university_of_washington / imap 2004 2004.x
university_of_washington / imap 2006k 2006k.x
university_of_washington / imap 2004a 2004a.x
university_of_washington / imap 2004c 2004c.x
university_of_washington / imap 2001a 2001a.x
university_of_washington / imap 2006j 2006j.x
university_of_washington / imap 2000 2000.x
university_of_washington / imap 2006f 2006f.x
university_of_washington / imap 2006h 2006h.x
university_of_washington / imap 2002a 2002a.x
university_of_washington / imap - 2007d.x
university_of_washington / imap 2007 2007.x
university_of_washington / imap 2001 2001.x
university_of_washington / imap 2006 2006.x
university_of_washington / imap 2007a 2007a.x
university_of_washington / imap 2007b 2007b.x
university_of_washington / imap 2006b 2006b.x
university_of_washington / imap 2006c 2006c.x
university_of_washington / imap 2004e 2004e.x
university_of_washington / imap 2000b 2000b.x
university_of_washington / imap 2002b 2002b.x
university_of_washington / imap 2006i 2006i.x
university_of_washington / imap 2000a 2000a.x
university_of_washington / imap 2004g 2004g.x
university_of_washington / imap 2000c 2000c.x
university_of_washington / imap 2002c 2002c.x
university_of_washington / imap 2006d 2006d.x
university_of_washington / imap 2002e 2002e.x
university_of_washington / imap 2006g 2006g.x

Frequently Asked Questions

A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.

CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) estimates technical severity, but it doesn't automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, affected asset criticality, known exploitation (proof-of-concept or in-the-wild), and whether compensating controls exist. A "Medium" CVSS on an exposed, production system can be more urgent than a "Critical" on an isolated, non-production host.

A vulnerability is the underlying weakness. An exploit is the method or code used to take advantage of it. A zero-day is a vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor or has no publicly available fix when attackers begin using it. In practice, risk increases sharply when exploitation becomes reliable or widespread.

Recurring findings usually come from incomplete Asset Discovery, inconsistent patch management, inherited images, and configuration drift. In modern environments, you also need to watch the software supply chain: dependencies, containers, build pipelines, and third-party services can reintroduce the same weakness even after you patch a single host. Unknown or unmanaged assets (often called Shadow IT) are a common reason the same issues resurface.

Use a simple, repeatable triage model: focus first on externally exposed assets, high-value systems (identity, VPN, email, production), vulnerabilities with known exploits, and issues that enable remote code execution or privilege escalation. Then enforce patch SLAs and track progress using consistent metrics so remediation is steady, not reactive.

SynScan combines attack surface monitoring and continuous security auditing to keep your inventory current, flag high-impact vulnerabilities early, and help you turn raw findings into a practical remediation plan.