hMailServer vulnerabilities

Progressive Robot hMailServer 6.0.0 through 6.3.5 does not enforce TLS for outbound SMTP delivery to a mail exchanger whose DNSSEC-validated TLSA records contain no DANE-EE (usage 3) record, contrary to RFC 7672 section 2.2. The server used only DANE-EE records and treated a validated TLSA record set consisting of DANE-TA (usage 2) or otherwise unusable records as if no records were published, so delivery to such a host fell back to opportunistic TLS. An attacker with an active position on the network path between the server and the recipient's mail exchanger can suppress or break the STARTTLS negotiation and cause messages to be delivered in cleartext, where they can be read and modified.

Missing authorization on COM objects in Progressive Robot hMailServer 6.0.0 through 6.3.5 (Windows only) lets a local interactive user with no hMailServer credential read and write arbitrary files as the service account and queue mail as any sender. The service registers its COM classes with no DCOM access or launch permission and calls CoInitializeSecurity with no security descriptor, so any user logged on at the console or over Remote Desktop can activate the classes in the running service; a hMailServer.Message, its Attachments and Attachment, and a hMailServer.FetchAccount created this way carry a credential that never authenticated. Attachments.Add(path) and Attachment.SaveAs(path) performed no authorization check, and Message.Save/Copy and FetchAccount.AccountID/Save performed none either up to 6.3.3 and from 6.3.4 treated a holder with no credential as the server's own event-script host. Because the service does not impersonate the COM caller, Attachments.Add reads any file the service account can read and returns it, Attachment.SaveAs writes attacker-chosen bytes to any path it can write (on a LocalSystem installation, code execution as SYSTEM), Message.Save queues outbound mail from any address past the SMTP checks, and FetchAccount attaches a mail-fetch job to any mailbox. The objects an Application handed out behave the same once a later Authenticate on that Application fails.

Missing Host header validation and missing throttling of failed administrator sign-ins in the REST API listener of Progressive Robot hMailServer 6.0.0 through 6.3.5 allow a remote attacker to brute-force the server administrator's password through the administrator's own browser by DNS rebinding. The listener, which is off by default and bound to the loopback when enabled, answered requests whatever their Host header named, and a failed sign-in with the administrator's password from the loopback was neither auto-banned nor delayed. A web page whose host name the attacker rebinds to 127.0.0.1, opened in a browser on the server, can therefore send authenticated requests to the listener, read the answers and try administrator passwords at full speed until one is accepted, giving the attacker full administrative control of the mail server.

The Linux live-update apply helper (hmailserver-update) of Progressive Robot hMailServer 6.3.4 and 6.3.5 runs as root on a request file written by the unprivileged hmailserver service account, and took from that request the program used to verify an AppImage update's signature and the systemd unit to stop before reading the service account's files. An attacker who already runs code as the hmailserver service account, for example through another flaw in the mail server, can therefore have arbitrary code executed as root, on any Linux installation where the live update's path unit is active - the default for the project's .deb and .rpm packages - and on AppImage installations run under that unit.

Missing network timeouts in the Linux builds of Progressive Robot hMailServer 6.3.0 through 6.3.5 allow a remote attacker to hold server threads indefinitely and so stop outbound mail delivery (denial of service). The server set its socket timeouts in the form Windows takes, which Linux refuses, and its HTTPS clients read without a deadline, so a peer that accepts a connection and then sends nothing held the waiting thread for as long as the connection stayed open. The MTA-STS policy fetch, enabled by default, is made during outbound delivery to mta-sts.<recipient domain>, so anyone who can make the server deliver mail to a domain they control - for example as the envelope sender of a message that bounces - can hold delivery threads until outbound delivery stops. The same flaw affects the DANE TLSA query, the OAuth2 token request, the ACME client, and the ManageSieve and metrics listeners, which a silent client stops from serving anyone else. Windows builds are not affected.

Cross-site scripting in the webmail of Progressive Robot hMailServer 6.3.2 through 6.3.5 allows a remote attacker who can send a user an encrypted message to run script in the webmail's origin with that user's session. When the webmail decrypted an S/MIME message (from 6.3.2) or an OpenPGP message (from 6.3.4) in the browser, it offered each decrypted attachment as a blob URL of the media type the message declared for it. A click saved the file, but if the user opened the attachment in a new tab, a part declared as text/html was rendered as a document of the webmail's origin and its script could read the mailbox, send mail and change the account through the REST API. The webmail is served only when the REST API is enabled, which it is not by default.

Heap-based buffer overflow in the legacy Blowfish decryption routine (BlowFishEncryptor::DecryptFromString) in Progressive Robot hMailServer 6.0.0 through 6.3.3 on Windows allows a local interactive user with no hMailServer credentials to write bytes of their choosing past the end of a 255-byte heap buffer in the hMailServer service process, which runs as LocalSystem by default. The user does this by passing a long hexadecimal string to the COM method Utilities.BlowfishDecrypt, which checked no authentication. The routine converted hexadecimal input of any length into a fixed 255-byte buffer before decrypting it in place. The result is a denial of service (service crash), and possibly code execution with the privileges of the service account.

Eval injection vulnerability in hMailServer (versions 6.0.0-6.3.3) allows a remote, unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary JScript in the service process with service account privileges. It requires non-default configuration: event scripting enabled, JScript as script language, and an OnClientValidatePassword handler defined. Exploitation uses a password with backslash and apostrophe that is not properly escaped.