CVE-2002-0285
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 · uneditedOutlook Express 5.5 and 6.0 on Windows treats a carriage return ("CR") in a message header as if it were a valid carriage return/line feed combination (CR/LF), which could allow remote attackers to bypass virus protection and or other filtering mechanisms via a mail message with headers that only contain the CR, which causes Outlook to create separate headers.
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 · high confidenceOutlook Express 5.5 and 6.0 on Windows incorrectly handles malformed email headers containing only a carriage return (CR) character. While proper email headers should end with a CR/LF combination, Outlook Express treats a lone CR as a valid header terminator, causing it to parse what should be a single header as multiple separate headers. This parsing flaw allows attackers to embed malicious content or bypass filtering mechanisms that expect properly formatted headers.
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= 5.5= 6.0CVSS 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
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Authentication
- None
- Confidentiality
- Partial
- Integrity
- Partial
- Availability
- Partial
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
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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Verify Outlook Express is installedCheck for Outlook Express on the system by searching for 'outlook express' in Program Files or checking the Windows registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Outlook ExpressAffected if Outlook Express is found on the system and is the active email client
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Identify the installed Outlook Express versionOpen Outlook Express, click Help, then About Outlook Express to display the exact version number, or check the file version of mshtml.dll in the Windows System32 folderAffected if The version displayed is exactly 5.5 or 6.0 (no other versions are affected by this CVE)
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Confirm email client is actively configuredCheck if Outlook Express has any email accounts configured by examining the Identities or Account settings. If no accounts are set up, the parsing flaw cannot be exploited through incoming emailAffected if Outlook Express 5.5 or 6.0 is installed and has at least one email account configured to receive mail
A user is affected if they have Microsoft Outlook Express version 5.5 or 6.0 installed and actively configured to receive email, as these specific versions incorrectly parse lone CR characters in email headers.
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 dataApply Microsoft's security patch for this vulnerability; if patches are unavailable (Outlook Express is end-of-life), migrate to a supported email client such as Windows Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird, or Microsoft Outlook, and implement gateway-level email filtering to sanitize malformed headers before delivery.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation8.0 h
- Testing4.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
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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-2002-0285 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