CVE-2026-42257
CriticalCVSS 9.8Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk35th percentile - higher than 35% of all known CVEs
Summary
Net::IMAP implements Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) client functionality in Ruby. Prior to versions 0.4.24, 0.5.14, and 0.6.4, several Net::IMAP commands accept a raw string argument that is sent to the server without validation or escaping. If this string is derived from user-controlled input, it may contain CRLF sequences, which an attacker can use to inject arbitrary IMAP commands.
Risk Assessment
An attacker can send arbitrary IMAP commands to the server, potentially leading to unauthorized access to mailboxes, message theft, or data modification.
Recommendation
Upgrade Net::IMAP to version 0.4.24, 0.5.14, or 0.6.4 (depending on the branch used).
Other vulnerabilities in Net::IMAP
See all- CVE-2026-47242Medium
The Net::IMAP library in Ruby has a vulnerability that allows arbitrary IMAP command injection due to improper validation of arguments in the #id and #enable methods. This issue affects versions prior to 0.6.5 and 0.5.15.
- CVE-2026-47241Low
Net::IMAP in Ruby prior to versions 0.6.5 and 0.5.15 has a vulnerability that allows an attacker to inject additional commands. By exploiting improperly validated arguments, an attacker can force the first command to wait for another command to finish.
- CVE-2026-47240Medium
The Net::IMAP library in Ruby has a vulnerability that allows arbitrary IMAP command injection if the server does not support non-synchronizing literals. Versions prior to 0.6.5 and 0.5.15 are susceptible to an attack that may lead to unauthorized command execution.
- CVE-2026-42258Medium
The Net::IMAP library in Ruby before versions 0.4.24, 0.5.14, and 0.6.4 is vulnerable to CRLF injection / IMAP command injection via symbol arguments passed to IMAP commands.
- CVE-2026-42256Medium
In Net::IMAP for Ruby (versions 0.4.0 to before 0.4.24, 0.5.0 to before 0.5.14, 0.6.0 to before 0.6.4), when authenticating with SCRAM-SHA1 or SCRAM-SHA256, a hostile server can perform a computational denial-of-service attack by sending a large iteration count value.
- CVE-2026-42246High
In the Net::IMAP library for Ruby prior to versions 0.3.10, 0.4.24, 0.5.14, and 0.6.4, a man-in-the-middle attacker can cause the starttls method to return 'successfully' without actually starting TLS.
- CVE-2026-42245High
Net::IMAP in Ruby has quadratic time complexity when reading large responses containing many string literals. A hostile server can send crafted responses to exhaust the client's CPU, leading to a denial of service (DoS) attack.
Original NVD description (English source)
Net::IMAP implements Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) client functionality in Ruby. Prior to versions 0.4.24, 0.5.14, and 0.6.4, several Net::IMAP commands accept a raw string argument that is sent to the server without validation or escaping. If this string is derived from user-controlled input, it may contain contain CRLF sequences, which an attacker can use to inject arbitrary IMAP commands. This issue has been patched in versions 0.4.24, 0.5.14, and 0.6.4.

