Last updated 2 June 2026

In Dovecot before 2.2.36.3 and 2.3.x before 2.3.5.1, a local attacker can cause a buffer overflow in the indexer-worker process, which can be used to elevate to root. This occurs because of missing checks in the fts and pop3-uidl components.

Dovecot SQL based authentication can be bypassed when authusernamechars is cleared by admin. This vulnerability allows bypassing authentication for any user and user enumeration. Do not clear authusernamechars. If this is not possible, install latest fixed version. No publicly available exploits are known.

lib-smtp in submission-login and lmtp in Dovecot 2.3.9 before 2.3.9.3 mishandles truncated UTF-8 data in command parameters, as demonstrated by the unauthenticated triggering of a submission-login infinite loop.

It was discovered that Dovecot before versions 2.2.36.1 and 2.3.4.1 incorrectly handled client certificates. A remote attacker in possession of a valid certificate with an empty username field could possibly use this issue to impersonate other users.

Sending "NOOP (((...)))" command with 4000 parenthesis open+close results in ~1MB extra memory usage. Longer commands will result in client disconnection. This 1 MB can be left allocated for longer time periods by not sending the command ending LF. So attacker could connect possibly from even a single IP and create 1000 connections to allocate 1 GB of memory, which would likely result in reaching VSZ limit and killing the process and its other proxied connections. Attacker could connect possibly from even a single IP and create 1000 connections to allocate 1 GB of memory, which would likely result in reaching VSZ limit and killing the process and its other proxied connections. Install fixed version, there is no other remediation. No publicly available exploits are known.

Attacker can send a specifically crafted message before authentication that causes managesieve to allocate large amount of memory. Attacker can force managesieve-login to be unavailable by repeatedly crashing the process. Protect access to managesieve protocol, or install fixed version. No publicly available exploits are known.

ManageSieve AUTHENTICATE command crashes when using literal as SASL initial response. This can be used to crash ManageSieve service repeatedly, making it unavailable for other users. Control access to ManageSieve port, or disable the service if it's not needed. Alternatively upgrade to a fixed version. No publicly available exploits are known.

When sending invalid base64 SASL data, login process is disconnected from the auth server, causing all active authentication sessions to fail. Invalid BASE64 data can be used to DoS a vulnerable server to break concurrent logins. Install fixed version or disable concurrency in login processes (heavy perfomance penalty on large deployments). No publicly available exploits are known.

An attacker can cause uncontrolled memory usage with excessive bracing over IMAP. The fix in CVE-2026-27857 was incomplete, only blocking one way of doing this, so there was still another way left open. In particular, the fix was for closing braces, but you could still use open braces to bypass the limit. Using excessive bracing, attacker can cause memory usage up to configured memory limit. Install fixed version, or configure vszlimit for imap process to low value. No publicly available exploits are known.

A flaw was found in dovecot 2.0 up to 2.2.33 and 2.3.0. A abort of SASL authentication results in a memory leak in Dovecot auth client used by login processes. The leak has impact in high performance configuration where same login processes are reused and can cause the process to crash due to memory exhaustion.

Upstream patch:

https://github.com/dovecot/core/commit/1a29ed2f96da1be22fa5a4d96c7583aa81b8b060.patch

https://github.com/dovecot/core/commit/a9b135760aea6d1790d447d351c56b78889dac22.patch

In Dovecot before 2.3.11.3, sending a specially formatted RPA request will crash the auth service because a length of zero is mishandled.

In Dovecot before 2.3.11.3, sending a specially formatted NTLM request will crash the auth service because of an out-of-bounds read.

In Dovecot before 2.3.11.3, uncontrolled recursion in submission, lmtp, and lda allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (resource consumption) via a crafted e-mail message with deeply nested MIME parts.

In Dovecot before 2.3.10.1, unauthenticated sending of malformed parameters to a NOOP command causes a NULL Pointer Dereference and crash in submission-login, submission, or lmtp.

Doveadm credentials are verified using direct comparison which is susceptible to timing oracle attack. An attacker can use this to determine the configured credentials. Figuring out the credential will lead into full access to the affected component. Limit access to the doveadm http service port, install fixed version. No publicly available exploits are known.

A specially crafted email delivered over SMTP and passed on to Dovecot by MTA can trigger an out of bounds read resulting in potential sensitive information disclosure and denial of service. In order to trigger this vulnerability, an attacker needs to send a specially crafted email message to the server.

Dovecot OTP authentication is vulnerable to replay attack under specific conditions. If auth cache is enabled, and username is altered in passdb, then OTP credentials can be cached so that same OTP reply is valid. An attacker able to observe an OTP exchange is able to log in as the user. If authentication happens over unsecure connection, switch to SCRAM protocol. Alternatively ensure the communcations are secured, and if possible switch to OAUTH2 or SCRAM. No publicly available exploits are known.

Attacker can use a specially crafted base64 exchange between Dovecot and Client to fake SCRAM TLS channel binding. This requires that the attacker is able to position itself between Dovecot and the client connection. If successful, the attacker can eavesdrop communications between Dovecot and client as MITM proxy. Install fixed version. No publicly available exploits are known.

Dovecot before 1.0.10, with certain configuration options including use of %variables, does not properly maintain the LDAP+auth cache, which might allow remote authenticated users to login as a different user who has the same password.

Attacker can upload a malicious Sieve script over ManageSieve service (or locally) to bypass configured CPU time limits for Sieve up to 130 times of the configured limit. Attacker can use this to degrade server performance and bypass configured CPU time limits for Sieve scripts. Install fixed version, or alternatively prevent direct access to Sieve scripts via ManageSieve or local access. No publicly available exploits are known.

The ACL plugin in Dovecot before 1.0.3 allows remote authenticated users with the insert right to save certain flags via a (1) COPY or (2) APPEND command.

A denial of service flaw was found in dovecot before 2.2.34. An attacker able to generate random SNI server names could exploit TLS SNI configuration lookups, leading to excessive memory usage and the process to restart.

The auth component in Dovecot before 2.2.27, when auth-policy is configured, allows a remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) by aborting authentication without setting a username.

checkpassword-reply in Dovecot before 2.2.7 performs setuid operations to a user who is authenticating, which allows local users to bypass authentication and access virtual email accounts by attaching to the process and using a restricted file descriptor to modify account information in the response to the dovecot-auth server.

plugins/acl/acl-backend-vfile.c in Dovecot 1.2.x before 1.2.15 and 2.0.x before 2.0.5 interprets an ACL entry as a directive to add to the permissions granted by another ACL entry, instead of a directive to replace the permissions granted by another ACL entry, in certain circumstances involving more specific entries that occur after less specific entries, which allows remote authenticated users to bypass intended access restrictions via a request to read or modify a mailbox.

plugins/acl/acl-backend-vfile.c in Dovecot 1.2.x before 1.2.15 and 2.0.x before 2.0.5 interprets an ACL entry as a directive to add to the permissions granted by another ACL entry, instead of a directive to replace the permissions granted by another ACL entry, in certain circumstances involving the private namespace of a user, which allows remote authenticated users to bypass intended access restrictions via a request to read or modify a mailbox.

A mail message containing excessive amount of RFC 2231 MIME parameters causes LMTP to use too much CPU. A suitably formatted mail message causes mail delivery process to consume large amounts of CPU time. Use MTA capabilities to limit RFC 2231 MIME parameters in mail messages, or upgrade to fixed version where the processing is limited. No publicly available exploits are known.

When dovecot has been configured to use per-domain passwd files, and they are placed one path component above /etc, or slash has been added to allowed characters, path traversal can happen if the domain component is directory partial. This allows inadvertently reading /etc/passwd (or some other path which ends with passwd). If this file contains passwords, it can be used to authenticate wrongly, or if this is userdb, it can unexpectly make system users appear valid users. Upgrade to fixed version, or use different authentication scheme that does not rely on paths. Alternatively you can also ensure that the per-domain passwd files are in some other location, such as /etc/dovecot/auth/%d. No publicly available exploits are known.

If authusernamechars is empty, it is possible to inject arbitrary LDAP filter to Dovecot's LDAP authentication. This leads to potentially bypassing restrictions and allows probing of LDAP structure. Do not clear out authusernamechars, or install fixed version. No publicly available exploits are known.