Vulnerability-Lookup

Vulnerability from bitnami_vulndb

Published

2025-08-11 13:52

Modified

2026-09-08 08:34

Summary

Details

The legacy email.utils.parseaddr function in Python through 3.11.4 allows attackers to trigger "RecursionError: maximum recursion depth exceeded while calling a Python object" via a crafted argument. This argument is plausibly an untrusted value from an application's input data that was supposed to contain a name and an e-mail address. NOTE: email.utils.parseaddr is categorized as a Legacy API in the documentation of the Python email package. Applications should instead use the email.parser.BytesParser or email.parser.Parser class. NOTE: the vendor's perspective is that this is neither a vulnerability nor a bug. The email package is intended to have size limits and to throw an exception when limits are exceeded; they were exceeded by the example demonstration code.

JSON

To clipboard

{
  "affected": [
    {
      "package": {
        "ecosystem": "Bitnami",
        "name": "libpython",
        "purl": "pkg:bitnami/libpython"
      },
      "ranges": [
        {
          "events": [
            {
              "introduced": "0"
            },
            {
              "fixed": "3.11.5"
            }
          ],
          "type": "SEMVER"
        }
      ],
      "severity": [
        {
          "score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H",
          "type": "CVSS_V3"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "aliases": [
    "CVE-2023-36632"
  ],
  "database_specific": {
    "cpes": [
      "cpe:2.3:a:python:python:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*"
    ],
    "severity": "High"
  },
  "details": "The legacy email.utils.parseaddr function in Python through 3.11.4 allows attackers to trigger \"RecursionError: maximum recursion depth exceeded while calling a Python object\" via a crafted argument. This argument is plausibly an untrusted value from an application\u0027s input data that was supposed to contain a name and an e-mail address. NOTE: email.utils.parseaddr is categorized as a Legacy API in the documentation of the Python email package. Applications should instead use the email.parser.BytesParser or email.parser.Parser class. NOTE: the vendor\u0027s perspective is that this is neither a vulnerability nor a bug. The email package is intended to have size limits and to throw an exception when limits are exceeded; they were exceeded by the example demonstration code.",
  "id": "BIT-libpython-2023-36632",
  "modified": "2026-09-08T08:34:36.952Z",
  "published": "2025-08-11T13:52:24.684Z",
  "references": [
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://docs.python.org/3/library/email.html"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://docs.python.org/3/library/email.utils.html"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/Daybreak2019/PoC_python3.9_Vul/blob/main/RecursionError-email.utils.parseaddr.py"
    },
    {
      "type": "EVIDENCE",
      "url": "https://github.com/python/cpython/issues/103800"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-36632"
    }
  ],
  "schema_version": "1.6.2"
}

CVE-2023-36632 (GCVE-0-2023-36632)

Vulnerability from cvelistv5 – Published: 2023-06-25 00:00 – Updated: 2024-11-27 19:46 Disputed

Summary

Severity

No CVSS data available.

SSVC

Exploitation: poc Automatable: yes Technical Impact: partial

CISA Coordinator · CISA-ADP (v2.0.3)

Decision recorded 2024-11-27 19:46 UTC

CWE

Assigner

mitre mitre root

References

4 references

URL	Tags
https://docs.python.org/3/library/email.utils.html
https://docs.python.org/3/library/email.html
https://github.com/Daybreak2019/PoC_python3.9_Vul…
https://github.com/python/cpython/issues/103800

Show details on NVD website

JSON

To clipboard

{
  "containers": {
    "adp": [
      {
        "providerMetadata": {
          "dateUpdated": "2024-08-02T16:52:54.270Z",
          "orgId": "af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108",
          "shortName": "CVE"
        },
        "references": [
          {
            "tags": [
              "x_transferred"
            ],
            "url": "https://docs.python.org/3/library/email.utils.html"
          },
          {
            "tags": [
              "x_transferred"
            ],
            "url": "https://docs.python.org/3/library/email.html"
          },
          {
            "tags": [
              "x_transferred"
            ],
            "url": "https://github.com/Daybreak2019/PoC_python3.9_Vul/blob/main/RecursionError-email.utils.parseaddr.py"
          },
          {
            "tags": [
              "x_transferred"
            ],
            "url": "https://github.com/python/cpython/issues/103800"
          }
        ],
        "title": "CVE Program Container"
      },
      {
        "metrics": [
          {
            "other": {
              "content": {
                "id": "CVE-2023-36632",
                "options": [
                  {
                    "Exploitation": "poc"
                  },
                  {
                    "Automatable": "yes"
                  },
                  {
                    "Technical Impact": "partial"
                  }
                ],
                "role": "CISA Coordinator",
                "timestamp": "2024-11-27T19:46:39.851683Z",
                "version": "2.0.3"
              },
              "type": "ssvc"
            }
          }
        ],
        "providerMetadata": {
          "dateUpdated": "2024-11-27T19:46:48.884Z",
          "orgId": "134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0",
          "shortName": "CISA-ADP"
        },
        "title": "CISA ADP Vulnrichment"
      }
    ],
    "cna": {
      "affected": [
        {
          "product": "n/a",
          "vendor": "n/a",
          "versions": [
            {
              "status": "affected",
              "version": "n/a"
            }
          ]
        }
      ],
      "descriptions": [
        {
          "lang": "en",
          "value": "The legacy email.utils.parseaddr function in Python through 3.11.4 allows attackers to trigger \"RecursionError: maximum recursion depth exceeded while calling a Python object\" via a crafted argument. This argument is plausibly an untrusted value from an application\u0027s input data that was supposed to contain a name and an e-mail address. NOTE: email.utils.parseaddr is categorized as a Legacy API in the documentation of the Python email package. Applications should instead use the email.parser.BytesParser or email.parser.Parser class. NOTE: the vendor\u0027s perspective is that this is neither a vulnerability nor a bug. The email package is intended to have size limits and to throw an exception when limits are exceeded; they were exceeded by the example demonstration code."
        }
      ],
      "problemTypes": [
        {
          "descriptions": [
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      ],
      "providerMetadata": {
        "dateUpdated": "2023-06-29T00:00:00.000Z",
        "orgId": "8254265b-2729-46b6-b9e3-3dfca2d5bfca",
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      "references": [
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        },
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          "url": "https://github.com/Daybreak2019/PoC_python3.9_Vul/blob/main/RecursionError-email.utils.parseaddr.py"
        },
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      "tags": [
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  "cveMetadata": {
    "assignerOrgId": "8254265b-2729-46b6-b9e3-3dfca2d5bfca",
    "assignerShortName": "mitre",
    "cveId": "CVE-2023-36632",
    "datePublished": "2023-06-25T00:00:00.000Z",
    "dateReserved": "2023-06-25T00:00:00.000Z",
    "dateUpdated": "2024-11-27T19:46:48.884Z",
    "state": "PUBLISHED"
  },
  "dataType": "CVE_RECORD",
  "dataVersion": "5.1"
}

Sightings

Author	Source	Type	Date	Other

Nomenclature

Seen: The vulnerability was mentioned, discussed, or observed by the user.
Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
Published Proof of Concept: A public proof of concept is available for this vulnerability.
Exploited: The vulnerability was observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
Patched: The vulnerability was observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
Not exploited: The vulnerability was not observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
Not confirmed: The user expressed doubt about the validity of the vulnerability.
Not patched: The vulnerability was not observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.

Detection rules are retrieved from Rulezet.

The MITRE ATT&CK techniques below are AI-generated suggestions, inferred from the description of the vulnerability by the CIRCL/vulnerability-attack-technique-classification-roberta-base model, served locally by ML-Gateway. They have not been verified by an analyst and are provided for guidance only.
The approach is described in our paper Mapping CVEs to MITRE ATT&CK Techniques: A Curated Gold-Set Classifier and the Limits of LLM-Assisted Label Expansion.
Browse all ATT&CK techniques and the vulnerabilities related to each.

Related by attack behaviour

Vulnerabilities whose description is nearest to this one in the vector space of the CIRCL/vulnerability-attack-technique-biencoder model. This is a similarity search over the bi-encoder space (plain cosine), not a classification, and it has no measured accuracy.