Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
ClamAV could be tied up by specially formatted email files. A remote unauthenticated sender could cause the scanner to spend extremely long time parsing MIME content, denying antivirus scanning capacity. The business risk is mail-security slowdown or outage where vulnerable ClamAV handles inbound mail.
Executive priority
Prioritize remediation where ClamAV protects email flow or security gateways. The issue affects availability rather than data confidentiality, but disruption to mail scanning can delay business communication and weaken security monitoring.
Technical view
CVE-2019-15961 is an inefficient MIME parsing issue in ClamAV 0.102.0, 0.101.4 and prior, classified as CWE-20. CVSS 3.1 is 7.5, network exploitable, low complexity, no privileges or user interaction, with high availability impact only.
Likely exposure
Exposure is most likely on mail gateways, file-scanning services, or security appliances using vulnerable ClamAV versions to inspect email or MIME files. The supplied affected-product data is sparse, so confirm package versions through local inventory and vendor or distribution advisories.
Exploitation context
The source bundle describes remote unauthenticated denial of service by sending a crafted email file. It does not cite CISA KEV listing or confirmed active exploitation. Treat exploit status as unconfirmed from the provided evidence.
Researcher notes
The vulnerability is rooted in inefficient MIME parsing, producing extremely long scan times for specially formatted email files. Public source data supports denial-of-service impact but does not provide exploit maturity, fixed upstream version details, or broader product mapping beyond referenced advisories.
Mitigation direction
- Upgrade ClamAV using vendor or distribution security updates.
- Prioritize systems scanning inbound email or untrusted MIME files.
- Check Cisco, ClamAV, Ubuntu, Debian, and Gentoo guidance for fixed packages.
- Monitor mail queues and scanner latency for abnormal scan-time spikes.
- Use compensating controls to limit scanner resource exhaustion where available.
Validation and detection
- Inventory ClamAV versions across mail gateways and scanning services.
- Confirm whether versions are 0.102.0, 0.101.4, or earlier.
- Verify installed packages match vendor or distribution security updates.
- Review mail-scanning logs for repeated long-running MIME scans.
- Confirm alerting exists for scanner process hangs or queue buildup.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.
CWE-20: Exact CWE lookup
Use the exact CWE identifier as the starting point before reviewing related ATT&CK behavior. Open the exact CWE lookup page first, then review the ATT&CK searches from that MITRE weakness context. This is a Glexia lookup hint, not an official ATT&CK mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupCVE-2019-15961 mapping review
Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.
Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- High
- CVSS
- 7.5 (3.1)
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
CVSS vector scores
1 official scoreWe collect every scored CVSS vector available in the official CNA and ADP containers. When more than one version is present, the table keeps the source vectors side by side instead of collapsing them into the highest score.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H3.93.6Primary CVE scoreVulnerability scoring details
Base CVSS 3.1 score
7.5HighVector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- https://bugzilla.clamav.net/show_bug.cgi?id=12380CVE reference · vendor-advisory, x_refsource_CISCO
- https://quickview.cloudapps.cisco.com/quickview/bug/CSCvr56010CVE reference · vendor-advisory, x_refsource_CISCO
- USN-4230-2CVE reference · vendor-advisory, x_refsource_UBUNTU
- [debian-lts-announce] 20200218 [SECURITY] [DLA 2108-1] clamav security updateCVE reference · mailing-list, x_refsource_MLIST
- GLSA-202003-46CVE reference · vendor-advisory, x_refsource_GENTOO
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.
Improper Input Validation
Improper Input Validation represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.