vulnerability

Amazon Linux 2023: CVE-2024-23184: Medium priority package update for dovecot

Severity
7
CVSS
(AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:N/I:N/A:C)
Published
Aug 15, 2024
Added
Feb 17, 2025
Modified
Jul 9, 2025

Description

Having a large number of address headers (From, To, Cc, Bcc, etc.) becomes excessively CPU intensive. With 100k header lines CPU usage is already 12 seconds, and in a production environment we observed 500k header lines taking 18 minutes to parse. Since this can be triggered by external actors sending emails to a victim, this is a security issue. An external attacker can send specially crafted messages that consume target system resources and cause outage. One can implement restrictions on address headers on MTA component preceding Dovecot. No publicly available exploits are known.
A flaw was found in Dovecot. Processing a large number of address headers (From, To, Cc, Bcc, etc) can be excessively CPU intensive. This flaw allows a remote attacker to trigger a denial of service.

Solutions

amazon-linux-2023-upgrade-dovecotamazon-linux-2023-upgrade-dovecot-debuginfoamazon-linux-2023-upgrade-dovecot-debugsourceamazon-linux-2023-upgrade-dovecot-develamazon-linux-2023-upgrade-dovecot-mysqlamazon-linux-2023-upgrade-dovecot-mysql-debuginfoamazon-linux-2023-upgrade-dovecot-pgsqlamazon-linux-2023-upgrade-dovecot-pgsql-debuginfoamazon-linux-2023-upgrade-dovecot-pigeonholeamazon-linux-2023-upgrade-dovecot-pigeonhole-debuginfo
Title
Rapid7 Labs

2026 Global Threat Landscape Report

The predictive window has collapsed. Exploitation follows disclosure in days. See how attackers are accelerating and how to stay ahead.