# CVE-2002-2338: Denial of service in n/a

> Remote attackers can cause denial of service in Mozilla and Netscape POP3 clients by sending emails with specific dot characters, preventing new mail retrieval.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.0 (`AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** A user has to click or open something
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 29 Oct 2007
- **Updated:** 16 Sep 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-w6p5-vm5x-8m2m

## What is CVE-2002-2338?

CVE-2002-2338 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Mozilla Mozilla, published on 29 Oct 2007. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

### Official description

The POP3 mail client in Mozilla 1.0 and earlier, and Netscape Communicator 4.7 and earlier, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (no new mail) via a mail message containing a dot (.) at a newline, which is interpreted as the end of the message.

Weakness: CWE-20 (Improper Input Validation)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2002-2338?

It affects 3 products.


Products: Mozilla Mozilla, Netscape Communicator, Netscape Navigator.

## How do I fix CVE-2002-2338?

No fix has been published for CVE-2002-2338 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2002-2338 being exploited?

It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2002-2338 exists.

Public exploit code:

- Netscape 4.x/6.x / Mozilla 0.9.x - Malformed Email POP3 Denial of Service (exploitdb)

## Other vulnerabilities in Mozilla Mozilla

- [CVE-2007-1794](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2007-1794/): Use after free in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2004-0722](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2004-0722/): Integer overflow in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2007-4039](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2007-4039/): Command injection in n/a (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2003-0791](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2003-0791/): Deserialization in n/a (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2005-3896](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2005-3896/): Denial of service in n/a (high 7.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2002-2338 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2002-2338 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Mozilla Mozilla, published on 29 Oct 2007. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Exploitation: It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2002-2338 exists.

Affected product: Mozilla Mozilla. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2002-2338/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2002-2338/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2002-2338
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2002-2338
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2002-2338

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2002-2338/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.