Skip to content
Fencer Vulns
medium 4.3

CVE-2026-42008 json

Forwarding information received from a host listed as a trusted proxy is not kept separate from Dovecot's own authentication fields, so a v…

published 2026-08-28 2 mo ago modified 2026-09-03 2 mo ago also EUVD-2026-67673

cvss
4.3
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 14%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Forwarding information received from a host listed as a trusted proxy is not kept separate from Dovecot's own authentication fields, so a value sent by that host can be injected as an internal authentication field. Any host permitted to act as a trusted proxy can authenticate as any user without knowing that user's password. This affects deployments whose password database honours a field that permits authentication without a password. Deployments that do not configure trusted proxies are not affected. Restrict the list of trusted proxy networks to hosts that are fully under your control. Update to non-vulnerable version. No publicly available exploits are known.

Patch / fix

  • Open-Xchange GmbH OX Dovecot Pro 2.3.22.2, 3.0.7, 3.1.6
  • Open-Xchange GmbH OX Dovecot CE 2.4.5
  • dovecot Debian 12 1:2.3.19.1+dfsg1-2.1+deb12u7
  • dovecot Debian 13 1:2.4.1+dfsg1-6+deb13u7
  • dovecot Debian 14 1:2.4.5+dfsg1-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-42008

  • dovecot23 SLES for SAP 15 SP6, SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES for SAP 15 SP4 +8 more 2.3.21.1-150200.76.1
  • dovecot24 SLES for SAP applications 16.0, SLES 16.0 2.4.4-160000.2.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:4139-1SUSE-SU-2026:23595-1

  • dovecot24 openSUSE Leap 16.0 2.4.4-160000.2.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:21720-1

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-42008 updated cvss 4.3

dovecot: Dovecot: Authentication bypass via trusted proxy forwarding

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 dovecot, dovecot-mysql, dovecot-pgsql, dovecot-pigeonhole
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 dovecot, dovecot-mysql, dovecot-pgsql, dovecot-pigeonhole Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 dovecot, dovecot-mysql, dovecot-pgsql, dovecot-pigeonhole Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 dovecot, dovecot-mysql, dovecot-pgsql, dovecot-pigeonhole Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 dovecot
    affected: workaround, no fix available “Fix deferred”

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
2 mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.24% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 14% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 4.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N

Affected products

  • Open-Xchange GmbH OX Dovecot Pro
  • Open-Xchange GmbH OX Dovecot CE

Classification

Weakness

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.