REDHAT-BUG-2305909
First published: Mon Aug 19 2024(Updated: )
Vulnerability Details: Having a large number of address headers (From, To, Cc, Bcc, etc.) becomes excessively CPU intensive. With 100k header lines CPU usage is already 12 seconds, and in a production environment we observed 500k header lines taking 18 minutes to parse. Since this can be triggered by external actors sending emails to a victim, this is a security issue. The main problem is that each header line's address is added to the end of a linked list. This is done by walking the whole linked list, which becomes more inefficient the more addresses there are. Workaround: One can implement restrictions on address headers on MTA component preceding Dovecot. Fix: Install non-vulnerable version of Dovecot. Patch can be found at <a href="https://github.com/dovecot/core/compare/8e4c42d%5E...1481c04.patch">https://github.com/dovecot/core/compare/8e4c42d%5E...1481c04.patch</a>
| Affected Software | Affected Version | How to fix |
|---|---|---|
| Dovecot | < |
Never miss a vulnerability like this again
Sign up to SecAlerts for real-time vulnerability data matched to your software, aggregated from hundreds of sources.
Reference Links
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the severity of REDHAT-BUG-2305909?
The severity of REDHAT-BUG-2305909 is high due to excessive CPU usage when handling a large number of address headers.
How do I fix REDHAT-BUG-2305909?
To fix REDHAT-BUG-2305909, upgrade to the patched version of Dovecot as recommended by Red Hat.
What software is affected by REDHAT-BUG-2305909?
REDHAT-BUG-2305909 affects all versions of Dovecot, particularly in scenarios involving large address headers.
What are the symptoms of REDHAT-BUG-2305909?
The symptoms of REDHAT-BUG-2305909 include significantly increased CPU time and resource consumption when parsing email header lines.
Is there a workaround for REDHAT-BUG-2305909?
A possible workaround for REDHAT-BUG-2305909 is to limit the number of address headers processed in a single email.
- agent/severity
- agent/type
- agent/event
- agent/description
- agent/first-publish-date
- collector/redhat-bugzilla
- source/Red Hat
- alias/CVE-2024-23184
- agent/references
- agent/last-modified-date
- agent/trending
- agent/source
- agent/softwarecombine
- agent/tags
- agent/guess-ai
- agent/software-canonical-lookup
- agent/software-canonical-lookup-request
- vendor/dovecot
- canonical/dovecot