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ThunderbirdApplication · Mozilla

CVE-2020-6793

MEDIUM · 6.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2020-03-02
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 68.5.0 or later.
See remediation →
72/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable No privileges

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
When processing an email message with an ill-formed envelope, Thunderbird could read data from a random memory location. This vulnerability affects Thunderbird < 68.5.

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

A memory safety vulnerability in Thunderbird's email envelope parsing allows reading from arbitrary memory locations when processing a malformed email message. This out-of-bounds read could leak sensitive memory contents to an attacker who can send a specially crafted email.

MitigationUpgrade Thunderbird to version 68.5 or later to remediate the vulnerability.

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
ThunderbirdApplication
Affected:< 68.5.0

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
Privileges
None
User interaction
Required
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
None
Availability
None

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/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 if Thunderbird is installed
    On Windows: look in Program Files for Thunderbird folder or check Add/Remove Programs. On macOS: check /Applications folder. On Linux: run 'which thunderbird' or query package manager (dpkg -l | grep thunderbird, rpm -qa | grep thunderbird).
    Affected if Thunderbird is not installed on the system
  2. Determine installed Thunderbird version
    From command line: run 'thunderbird --version' (Linux/macOS) or check Thunderbird executable properties (Windows). Alternatively, open Thunderbird and go to Help > About Thunderbird to see the version number.
    Affected if Unable to retrieve the version number
  3. Compare version to vulnerable range
    Compare the installed version number to 68.5.0. Parse the version as semantic versioning: major.minor.patch. Any version where the major version is 68 and minor is less than 5, or any version below 68 entirely, is vulnerable.
    Affected if Installed version is below 68.5.0 (for example: 68.4.2, 68.3.0, 60.9.1, etc.)

System is affected if Thunderbird is installed and the installed version is lower than 68.5.0.

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
Upgrade available Upgrade to 68.5.0 or later
Fixed in 68.5.0
Interim mitigation

Upgrade Thunderbird to version 68.5 or later to remediate the vulnerability.

Fix this in Thunderbird Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation4.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
11.0 hours of engineering $1,930
Get the upgrade done

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $3,088.

Scan for this in your stack

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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-2020-6793 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