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AixOperating system · Ibm

CVE-2002-0743

HIGH · 10.0 CVSS v2.0 Published 2002-08-12
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

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 · unedited
mail and mailx in AIX 4.3.3 core dump when called with a very long argument, an indication of a buffer overflow.

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 · low confidence

The mail and mailx utilities in AIX 4.3.3 contain a buffer overflow vulnerability triggered by supplying an excessively long argument, causing a core dump and indicating potential for arbitrary code execution.

MitigationSince AIX 4.3.3 is a legacy system no longer supported, migrate to a supported AIX version or use alternative mail utilities; if continued use is required, restrict access to the mail command and consider input validation wrappers.

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
AixOperating system
Affected:= 4.3.3

CVSS 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
Complete
Integrity
Complete
Availability
Complete

AV:N/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 checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Verify AIX version
    Run 'oslevel' or 'uname -a' to determine the installed AIX version
    Affected if The system is running AIX 4.3.3 specifically
  2. Confirm mail utility presence
    Check if the mail or mailx binary exists using 'which mail' or 'ls -la /usr/bin/mail*'
    Affected if The mail or mailx utility is installed on the system
  3. Identify mail utility version
    Run 'mail -v' or 'mailx -v' to display version information, or use 'lslpp -l' to list installed filesets related to mail
    Affected if The installed mail utility version matches AIX 4.3.3 built-in version
  4. Test for oversized argument handling
    As a non-privileged user, attempt to trigger the overflow with an excessively long argument such as 'mail -s $(python3 -c "print("A"*10000)")' recipient' and observe if a core dump is generated
    Affected if The command triggers a core dump or crashes, indicating the vulnerability is present

The system is affected only if it is running AIX 4.3.3 and has the vulnerable mail/mailx utility installed, as the buffer overflow only manifests when an excessively long argument is supplied to the mail command in this specific version.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

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 data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Since AIX 4.3.3 is a legacy system no longer supported, migrate to a supported AIX version or use alternative mail utilities; if continued use is required, restrict access to the mail command and consider input validation wrappers.

Fix this in Aix Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation4.0 h
  • Implementation8.0 h
  • Testing4.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
18.0 hours of engineering $3,200
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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 sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2002-0743 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • 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
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