CVE-2004-1936
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 · uneditedZoneAlarm Pro 4.5.538.001 and possibly other versions allows remote attackers to bypass e-mail protection via attachments whose names contain certain non-English characters.
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 confidenceZoneAlarm Pro's email protection feature fails to properly validate or handle attachment filenames containing non-English (Unicode) characters, allowing malicious attachments to bypass the security filter. Attackers can craft email attachments with specially chosen Unicode characters in the filename to evade detection.
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= 2.4= 2.6= 3.0= 3.1= 4.0= 4.5= 4.5.538.001CVSS 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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Confirm ZoneAlarm Pro installationCheck if ZoneAlarm Pro is installed on the system by looking for the program in Add/Remove Programs (Windows) or checking for ZoneAlarm executable files in the installation directory (typically C:\Program Files\Zone Labs\ZoneAlarm\ or similar).Affected if ZoneAlarm Pro is not installed or the installed product is not ZoneAlarm Pro.
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Identify installed ZoneAlarm versionOpen ZoneAlarm Pro interface and navigate to the About section, or check the version information in the program's properties. Alternatively, locate the version in the Windows registry under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Zone Labs\ZoneAlarm or in the program's uninstall entry.Affected if The installed version matches one of the affected versions: 2.4, 2.6, 3.0, 3.1, 4.0, 4.5, or 4.5.538.001.
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Verify email protection feature is enabledOpen ZoneAlarm Pro interface and navigate to the Email Protection settings panel (typically found under Security > Email Protection or similar). Confirm whether the email scanning/filtering feature is turned on.Affected if Email protection is enabled and the software version is one of the affected versions listed above.
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Confirm email protection monitors incoming attachmentsIn the Email Protection settings, verify that attachment scanning is active. Look for options related to scanning, filtering, or blocking email attachments.Affected if Attachment scanning is enabled in the email protection module and the version is within the affected range.
You are affected if ZoneAlarm Pro is installed with a version matching 2.4, 2.6, 3.0, 3.1, 4.0, 4.5, or 4.5.538.001 and the Email Protection feature with attachment scanning is enabled.
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 dataUpdate ZoneAlarm Pro to the latest version which should include proper Unicode/character handling in email protection, or supplement with additional email gateway filtering that handles Unicode characters appropriately.
- Consultation1.0 h
- Testing1.0 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 $1,200.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2004-1936 — 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-2004-1936 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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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.
- 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