CVE-2026-126613: Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in hMailServer
Allocation of resources without limits in the JSON reader of Progressive Robot hMailServer 6.3.2 through 6.3.7 allows a remote attacker to exhaust the server's memory and hold its threads, making mail delivery, the REST API and the webmail unavailable. The reader built a tree of values far larger than the text it read, copying each value into every level above it, and set no bound on the number of values, so a single JSON document of many small values, within the 16 MB the server reads, raised the service's memory by about 2 GB and held one thread for seconds to minutes. From 6.3.4 a remote unauthenticated attacker reaches the reader by mailing such a document as a TLS-RPT report, up to 16 MB once decompressed, to a hosted domain's report mailbox, where an administrator has set one; it is read on a mail delivery thread (ten by default), and those threads deliver all mail, local and outbound. From 6.3.4 it is also reached without an account through the reply to a password-protected message, with the message's link alone, where the REST API is on (it is off by default) and a public base URL for such links is set; and by any account, from 6.3.2 through the webmail's send and draft routes and from 6.3.4 through its other routes granted 16 MB and the send API; the webmail's send, draft and settings routes parsed the body again for each member read. The REST API serves every request on four worker threads, in the process that also serves SMTP, IMAP and POP3, so a few such documents at once make it unavailable and can exhaust the machine's memory and end the whole service. This is a separate defect from CVE-2026-107574, the reader's handling of duplicate member names, fixed in 6.3.6.
Affected Software
Remediation
Recommended actions to resolve this vulnerability, in priority order.
- Upgrade
Upgrade
hMailServerto a version that resolves this vulnerability.Fixed in 6.3.8 - Configuration
Set RestApiPort to 0 to disable the REST API.
hMailServer REST API RestApiPort = 0 - Configuration
Switch OpenPGP off in the webmail by setting portal_enabled under /api/v1/settings/openpgp to off, and disable openpgp_portal_enabled for every domain or account that has it enabled.
hMailServer webmail OpenPGP portal_enabled and openpgp_portal_enabled = off - Compensating control
If the REST API remains enabled, place a reverse proxy in front of it that limits request bodies to well below 16 MB.
- Compensating control
For hMailServer 6.3.4 through 6.3.7, clear each domain's TLS-RPT report mailbox or move it off the domains hosted by the server so reports are not read by hMailServer.
- Operational
Restart the hMailServer service to end any busy thread.