LinuxOperating system · Redhat
CVE-1999-0868
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · unediteducbmail allows remote attackers to execute commands via shell metacharacters that are passed to it from INN.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · moderate confidenceucbmail does not properly sanitize shell metacharacters from input passed by INN (InterNetNews), allowing remote attackers to inject and execute arbitrary shell commands on the system.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data
LinuxOperating system
= 4.0= 4.1= 1.5.1= 1.1all versions= r1.1= r1.2= r2.2= r3.1CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Local
- Complexity
- Low
- Authentication
- None
- Confidentiality
- Complete
- Integrity
- Complete
- Availability
- Complete
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Check if ucbmail is installedLocate the ucbmail binary on the system using 'which ucbmail' or 'find / -name ucbmail -type f 2>/dev/null'Affected if ucbmail binary is found on the system and no input sanitization is applied to shell metacharacters in the mail piping mechanism
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Check if INN (InterNetNews) is installed and configuredLocate INN binaries (innd, inn.conf) typically in /usr/lib/news/ or /etc/news/, or search for 'innd' process running on the systemAffected if INN is installed and configured to pipe incoming news articles to ucbmail for mail relay
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Verify INN configuration for ucbmail integrationExamine INN configuration files (typically in /etc/news/ or /usr/lib/news/) for 'mailcmd' or 'nnrpd' settings that reference ucbmail, or check for custom filter scripts that pipe news data to ucbmailAffected if INN is configured to pipe unfiltered input from news articles directly to ucbmail without shell metacharacter sanitization
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Confirm installed version against affected rangesUse 'ucbmail --version' or check the package version with 'rpm -q ucbmail' (Red Hat) or 'pkginfo' (Sun), and compare to the affected versions: Red Hat 4.0/4.1, ISC INN 1.5.1, Netscape News Server 1.1, or NEC Goah versions r1.1, r1.2, r2.2, r3.1Affected if The installed version matches any of the affected versions listed (Red Hat 4.0/4.1, ISC INN 1.5.1, Netscape News Server 1.1, or NEC Goah variants)
The system is affected if ucbmail is installed, INN is configured to pipe news article input to ucbmail, and the installed version matches the affected Red Hat, ISC INN, Netscape News Server, or NEC Goah versions from circa 1999.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataSanitize all input passed to ucbmail from INN to remove shell metacharacters, or migrate to a mail application that properly sanitizes inputs.
Fix this in Linux
Scoped from the published advisory
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation4.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $2,560.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-1999-0868 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-1999-0868 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
- No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data