CVE-2012-3732
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 · uneditedMail in Apple iOS before 6 uses an S/MIME message's From address as the displayed sender address, which allows remote attackers to spoof signed content via an e-mail message in which the From field does not match the signer's identity.
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 iOS Mail app before version 6 incorrectly used the From header address from S/MIME signed messages as the displayed sender instead of verifying the actual signer's certificate identity. This allowed remote attackers to send emails with a From address that did not match the signing certificate's identity, enabling sender spoofing attacks against signed content.
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<= 5.1.1= 1.0.0= 1.0.1= 1.0.2= 1.1.0= 1.1.1= 1.1.2= 1.1.3= 1.1.4= 1.1.5= 2.0= 2.0.0CVSS 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
- Partial
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/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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Check iOS version on the deviceGo to Settings > General > About and look at the Version fieldAffected if The version is 5.1.1 or earlier, or matches one of the affected versions (1.0.0 through 2.0.0 or <= 5.1.1)
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Identify if S/MIME is configuredCheck the iOS Mail app settings for S/MIME certificates by going to Settings > Mail > Accounts > Email account > Advanced > S/MIMEAffected if S/MIME is enabled and configured for signed email processing
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Verify Mail app handles S/MIME signed messagesReceive and open an S/MIME signed email message in the iOS Mail app and observe whether the displayed From address matches the actual signing certificate identityAffected if The From address displayed does not match the certificate identity, indicating the vulnerability is present
The device is affected if it runs iOS version 5.1.1 or earlier and uses S/MIME for signed email, as the Mail app will display the From header without validating it against the signer's certificate.
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 dataUpgrade affected iOS devices to version 6 or later, as this version corrected the S/MIME validation to properly verify the signer's certificate identity against the displayed sender address.
- Consultation4.0 h
- Implementation8.0 h
- Testing4.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2012-3732 — 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-2012-3732 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
- No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data