CVE-2005-3382

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.0 v2.0)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 4.5% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2005-10-30 · updated 2026-06-16

Description

Multiple interpretation error in Sophos 3.91 with the 2.28.4 engine allows remote attackers to bypass virus scanning via a file such as BAT, HTML, and EML with an "MZ" magic byte sequence which is normally associated with EXE, which causes the file to be treated as a safe type that could still be executed as a dangerous file type by applications on the end system, as demonstrated by a "triple headed" program that contains EXE, EML, and HTML content, aka the "magic byte bug."

Affected products

Sophos Anti-Virus: 3.91_engine_2.28.4

References

http://marc.info/?l=bugtraq&m=113026417802703&w=2
http://www.securityelf.org/magicbyte.html
http://www.securityelf.org/magicbyteadv.html
http://www.securityelf.org/updmagic.html
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/15189
http://marc.info/?l=bugtraq&m=113026417802703&w=2
http://www.securityelf.org/magicbyte.html
http://www.securityelf.org/magicbyteadv.html
http://www.securityelf.org/updmagic.html
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/15189

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