MediumPublic exploit

Buffer overflow in Pine From: header parsing (pre-4.50)

IdentifiersCVE-2002-1320CWE-120

Pine mail user agent (Pine) contains a buffer overflow condition in its handling/parsing of the RFC 822/2822 From: header. In affected versions (reported as Pine 4.44 and earlier; CERT indicates Pine prior to 4.50), a remotely supplied email message with a crafted From: header containing an excessive number of quotation marks can trigger memory corruption, resulting in a crash (core dump) and failed restart, and per CERT advisory may also enable arbitrary code execution in the context of the user running Pine.

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ANALYST BRIEF

Impact, mitigation & remediation

What it means. What to do now. Patch path, mitigations, and the assume-compromise checklist.

Impact

What an attacker gets, and what they’ve been doing with it.

Remote attackers can cause Pine to crash (denial of service) when the malicious message is processed. Based on CERT advisory information, successful exploitation may also permit execution of arbitrary code with the privileges of the user running Pine, potentially leading to compromise of user data and system integrity.

Mitigation

If you can’t patch tonight, do this now.

Filter or block email messages with suspicious/overly long or malformed From: headers (including excessive quotation marks) at the MTA/MDA layer (e.g., Procmail, Sieve). If already delivered, remove the malicious message from the mailbox using external tools before Pine processes it.

Remediation

Patch, then assume compromise.

Upgrade Pine to version 4.50 or later, which includes a fix for the vulnerable From: header handling.

PUBLIC EXPLOITS

Exploits

No valid public exploits. Mallory filtered out 1 candidate as fakes, detection scripts, or README-only repos.

VALID 0 / 1 TOTALView more in app

All candidate exploits were filtered out by Mallory's validation.

EXPOSURE SURFACE

Affected products & vendors

Products and vendors Mallory has correlated with this vulnerability. Open in Mallory to drill down to specific CPE configurations and version ranges.

VendorProductType

University of WashingtonPineapplication

Vendor-confirmed product mapping. Mallory continuously reconciles this list against your asset inventory.

ACTIVITY FEED

Recent activity

1 sources tracked across advisories and community write-ups. News coverage will land here when it surfaces.

1 SOURCESView more in app

No news coverage yet. Advisories and community discussion only.

What this page doesn’t show

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Exposure mapping

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Threat actor evidence

Every observed campaign linking this CVE to a named adversary.

Associated malware

Malware families riding this exploit, with evidence and IOCs.

Detection signatures

YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.

Vendor-by-vendor mapping

Cross-references every affected SKU, including bundled OEM variants.

Social activity