OutlookApplication · Microsoft

CVE-2005-1052

MEDIUM · 5.0 CVSS v2.0 Published 2005-05-02
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
59/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
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
Microsoft Outlook 2003 and Outlook Web Access (OWA) 2003 do not properly display comma separated addresses in the From field in an e-mail message, which could allow remote attackers to spoof e-mail addresses.

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 confidence

Microsoft Outlook 2003 and Outlook Web Access (OWA) 2003 fail to properly parse and display comma-separated addresses in the From field of email messages. This allows an attacker to craft emails with a spoofed sender address by manipulating the comma-separated address format, causing the client to display a different address than the actual sender.

MitigationApply Microsoft security updates for Outlook 2003 and OWA 2003, or upgrade to newer supported versions. Implement email authentication mechanisms (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) at the mail gateway level to detect and block spoofed 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
OutlookApplication
Affected:= 2003
Outlook Web AccessApplication
Affected:= 2003

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
None
Integrity
Partial
Availability
None

AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N

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. Check installed Outlook version
    Open Outlook, go to Help > About Microsoft Outlook. The version number for 2003 is 11.x (build numbers like 11.5608, 11.6612, etc.)
    Affected if The version shown is 11.x (Outlook 2003)
  2. Check OWA version
    If using Exchange 2003 with OWA, check the Exchange server version. OWA 2003 runs on Exchange Server 2003.
    Affected if The OWA component is from Exchange Server 2003
  3. Inspect From field in received emails
    View the full email headers of a test message. Look at the From: header line - check if it contains multiple comma-separated email addresses that may display differently than the actual sender
    Affected if The From header contains comma-separated addresses where the displayed address differs from the actual sender address in the envelope
  4. Verify email authentication status
    Check email headers for SPF, DKIM, and DMARC results. Look for Authentication-Results header fields.
    Affected if No SPF, DKIM, or DMARC validation is performed on incoming messages, allowing spoofed emails to pass through

A user is affected if they are running exactly Outlook 2003 (version 11.x) or OWA 2003 and the mail system lacks proper authentication checks to detect spoofed comma-separated From addresses.

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

Apply Microsoft security updates for Outlook 2003 and OWA 2003, or upgrade to newer supported versions. Implement email authentication mechanisms (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) at the mail gateway level to detect and block spoofed messages.

Fix this in Outlook Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation4.0 h
  • Testing2.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
9.0 hours of engineering $1,600
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Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2005-1052 — 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 sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2005-1052 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
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data