Debian LinuxOperating system · Debian
CVE-2017-17843
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 · uneditedAn issue was discovered in Enigmail before 1.9.9 that allows remote attackers to trigger use of an intended public key for encryption, because incorrect regular expressions are used for extraction of an e-mail address from a comma-separated list, as demonstrated by a modified Full Name field and a homograph attack, aka TBE-01-002.
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 confidenceEnigmail before version 1.9.9 contains incorrect regular expressions for parsing email addresses from comma-separated lists. Attackers can exploit this by modifying the Full Name field combined with a homograph attack to trick the system into using an unintended public key for encryption, leading to plaintext exposure to the wrong recipient.
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
Debian LinuxOperating system
= 8.0= 9.0< 1.9.9CVSS 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
- High
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- None
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/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 checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Verify Enigmail is installedIn Thunderbird, go to Add-ons Manager > Extensions and look for Enigmail, or run 'dpkg -l | grep enigmail' on Debian systemsAffected if Enigmail is not listed in installed extensions or packages
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Determine installed Enigmail versionIn Thunderbird Add-ons Manager, click on Enigmail to view version details. On Debian, run 'dpkg -l enigmail' or 'apt-cache policy enigmail'Affected if Version displayed is lower than 1.9.9 or the package version shows a version number less than 1.9.9
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Check Debian system package versionRun 'apt-cache policy enigmail' to see installed and available versions of the Enigmail packageAffected if The installed version field shows a version less than 1.9.9-1 (the fixed Debian package version)
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Confirm vulnerability scopeThe regex parsing flaw affects any use of Enigmail for email encryption when processing comma-separated recipient lists. This is a core parsing function, not a configurable feature.Affected if Enigmail version is below 1.9.9 and the software is used for encrypting or decrypting emails with multiple recipients or mailing lists
A user is affected if Enigmail version 1.9.9 or later is not installed, as versions below 1.9.9 contain the flawed regex parsing that can cause encryption to the wrong recipient via homograph attacks in the Full Name field.
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 data1.9.9
Upgrade to Enigmail 1.9.9 or later which contains corrected regex patterns for proper email address extraction from lists.
Fix this in Debian Linux
Scoped from the published advisory
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing2.0 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 $1,984.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2017-17843 — 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-2017-17843 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