CVE-2008-3177
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 · uneditedSophos virus detection engine 2.75 on Linux and Unix, as used in Sophos Email Appliance, Pure Message for Unix, and Sophos Anti-Virus Interface (SAVI), allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (engine crash) via zero-length MIME attachments.
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 confidenceThe Sophos virus detection engine version 2.75 on Linux and Unix platforms contains a denial of service vulnerability when processing zero-length MIME attachments. When the engine attempts to scan these specially crafted attachments, it causes the engine to crash, potentially disrupting email flow in affected appliances and installations.
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 dataall versionsall versionsall versionsall versionsCVSS 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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Identify installed Sophos productsRun commands such as 'rpm -qa | grep -i sophos' or 'dpkg -l | grep -i sophos' on Linux/Unix systems to list installed Sophos packages. Check appliance management interfaces for Es1000/Es4000 installations.Affected if Any Sophos Anti Virus, Puremessage, Es1000, or Es4000 product is installed.
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Determine Sophos engine versionUse the Sophos command-line tool 'savdctl --version' or '/opt/sophos-av/bin/savdctl --version' to retrieve the virus detection engine version. Check appliance web interfaces for version information on Es1000/Es4000 devices.Affected if The engine version is exactly 2.75.
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Verify email gateway scanning is enabledFor Puremessage, check the configuration via command 'pmx config' or examine /opt/pmx/etc/ configuration files. For Es appliances, check the mail scanning policies in the web management console.Affected if Email scanning or mail gateway features are active and processing incoming messages.
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Confirm MIME attachment handling is activeReview mail transport configuration and Sophos scanning policies to verify that MIME attachments are being processed. Check if 'scan attachments' or similar options are enabled in the mail flow settings.Affected if MIME attachment scanning is enabled as part of the email processing pipeline.
The environment is affected if a Sophos product (Es1000, Es4000, Sophos Anti Virus, or Puremessage) with engine version 2.75 is installed AND email/MIME scanning is actively processing messages.
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 the Sophos virus detection engine to a version newer than 2.75. As a temporary workaround, implement email filtering rules to reject or quarantine zero-length MIME attachments until the patch can be applied.
- Consultation3.0 h
- Implementation6.0 h
- Testing3.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2008-3177 — 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-2008-3177 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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