CVE-2026-42245

highpriority · track · 30EPSS 0.004 · 35 %ileDEEUUS
grimoire priorityP2 · Scheduled
Exploitable?
—
no known exploitation
Likely / severe?
0.41% (35th) EPSS
CVSS 7.5 · high
Is it mine?
16 products
Check your exposure
Who says so?
5 sources
cnnvd · enisa_euvd · cert_bund · nvd

EPSS · scored 2026-10-27

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, Net::IMAP::ResponseReader has quadratic time complexity when reading large responses containing many string literals. A hostile server can send responses which are crafted to exhaust the client's CPU for a denial of service attack. This issue has been patched in versions 0.4.24, 0.5.14, and 0.6.4.

01

cvss

Technical severity, 0–10. One row per scoring source.

7.5
010

base score 0–10 · higher = more severe · hover a vector to decode⚠ sources disagree · low–high · 0.6–7.5

v3.17.5highCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:Hprimary · NVD / NIST USexploitability 3.9 · impact 3.6
v4.02.3lowCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:P/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:Nsecondary · ENISA EU
v4.02.3lowCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:P/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:Xsecondary · security-advisories@github.com
v4.00.6lowCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:P/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:U/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:Xsecondary · CVSS-BT (t0sche)
02

ssvc

A stakeholder decision — act, attend, or track — from exploitation and impact.

Trackcoordinatorcisa_ssvcUS
03

weaknesses

The CWE weakness classes this flaw belongs to.

04

affected products (16)

Products and version ranges known to be affected.

05

advisories (4)

Vendor and ecosystem advisories describing this.

  • WID-SEC-W-2026-2117HCL BigFix Compliance (Ruby): Mehrere SchwachstellenDeutsch2026-06-28csaf · cert_bundDE

    Ein Angreifer kann mehrere Schwachstellen in HCL BigFix Compliance ausnutzen, um beliebigen Code auszuführen, Sicherheitsmaßnahmen zu umgehen, Daten zu manipulieren, vertrauliche Informationen offenzulegen oder einen Denial-of-Service-Zustand herbeizuführen.

  • WID-SEC-W-2026-2163Red Hat Enterprise Linux (ruby: net-imap): Mehrere SchwachstellenDeutsch2026-06-30csaf · cert_bundDE

    Ein entfernter, anonymer Angreifer kann mehrere Schwachstellen in Red Hat Enterprise Linux ausnutzen, um einen Denial of Service Angriff durchzuführen, Sicherheitsmaßnahmen zu umgehen, Daten zu manipulieren oder vertrauliche Informationen offenzulegen.

  • WID-SEC-W-2026-2379Ruby: Mehrere SchwachstellenDeutsch2026-07-15csaf · cert_bundDE

    Ein Angreifer kann mehrere Schwachstellen in Ruby ausnutzen, um Informationen offenzulegen, um einen Denial of Service Angriff durchzuführen, und um beliebigen Programmcode auszuführen.

  • GHSA-q2mw-fvj9-vvcwnet-imap has quadratic complexity when reading response literals2026-05-04ghsa · osvUS

    ### Summary `Net::IMAP::ResponseReader` has quadratic time complexity when reading large responses containing many string literals. A hostile server can send responses which are crafted to exhaust the client's CPU for a denial of service attack. ### Details For each literal in a response, `ResponseReader` rescans the entire growing response buffer. The regular expression that is used to scan the response buffer runs in linear time. With many literals, this becomes O(n²) total work. The regular expression should run in constant time: it is anchored to the end and only the last 23 bytes of the buffer are relevant. Because the algorithmic complexity is super-linear, this bypasses protection from `max_response_size`: a response can stay well below the default size limit while still causing very large CPU cost. `Net::IMAP::ResponseReader` runs continuously in the receiver thread until the connection closes. ### Impact This consumes disproportionate CPU time in the client's receiver thread. A hostile server could use this to exhaust the client's CPU for a denial of service attack. For a response near the default `max_response_size`, each individual regexp scan could take between 100 to 200ms on common modern hardware, and this may be repeated 200k times per megabyte of response. While the regexp is scanning, it retains the Global VM lock, preventing other threads from running. Although other threads should not be _completely_ blocked, their run time will be significantly impacted. ### Mitigation * Upgrade to a patched version of net-imap that reads responses more efficiently. * Do not connect to untrusted IMAP servers. * When connecting to untrusted servers, a _much_ smaller `max_response_size` (for example: 8KiB) will limit the impact. Although this is too small for fetching unpaginated message bodies, it should be enough for most other operations.

06

also known as (3)

Other names and identifiers for this entity.

07

sources

Which sources assert this record, and when.

published 2026-05-09modified 2026-07-24
08

references (16)

External citations — patches, advisories, analysis.

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