CVE-2002-1255
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 · uneditedMicrosoft Outlook 2002 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (repeated failure) via an email message with a certain invalid header field that is accessed using POP3, IMAP, or WebDAV, aka "E-mail Header Processing Flaw Could Cause Outlook 2002 to Fail."
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 confidenceMicrosoft Outlook 2002 contains a denial of service vulnerability when processing email messages with certain invalid header fields. When Outlook 2002 accesses affected emails via POP3, IMAP, or WebDAV protocols, the malformed headers cause the application to fail repeatedly. The vulnerability allows remote attackers to crash Outlook by sending specially crafted email messages.
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= 2002CVSS 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
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- Partial
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/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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Check the installed Microsoft Outlook versionOpen Outlook, click Help > About Microsoft Outlook, or check the version in Add/Remove Programs under Microsoft Office. Confirm the version number is exactly 2002 (10.x).Affected if The installed version is Microsoft Outlook 2002 (version 10.x)
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Identify the email protocol in useIn Outlook, go to Tools > Email Accounts > View or change existing e-mail accounts. Check whether the account uses POP3, IMAP, or WebDAV protocols to retrieve mail.Affected if The account is configured to use POP3, IMAP, or WebDAV protocols
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Verify Outlook is configured to automatically process incoming messagesCheck Outlook rules or the preview pane settings. The vulnerability can trigger when Outlook parses headers during message retrieval or when the preview pane displays a malformed message.Affected if Preview pane is enabled or Outlook automatically downloads message headers on connect
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Assess exposure to external email sourcesDetermine if the mail server accepts connections from external/untrusted senders. The flaw is triggered by specially crafted messages from remote attackers.Affected if The POP3, IMAP, or WebDAV server receives email from untrusted or external sources
A user is affected if they are running Microsoft Outlook 2002 and receive specially crafted malformed email headers via POP3, IMAP, or WebDAV, causing Outlook to crash or become unresponsive.
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 the relevant Microsoft patch for Outlook 2002, or upgrade to a supported version of Microsoft Outlook. Consider implementing email server-side filtering to detect and block messages with malformed headers before delivery to clients.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation1.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2002-1255 — 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-2002-1255 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
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