Inefficient Algorithmic Complexity in hMailServer

Inefficient algorithmic complexity in the REST API (6.3.3 through 6.3.5) and the IMAP PREVIEW response (6.2.22 through 6.3.5) of Progressive Robot hMailServer allows a remote unauthenticated attacker to make the webmail, the administration console and the REST API unavailable by sending a message. To show a snippet of each message in a folder's message list, the server decoded the character entity references of a message that has an HTML part and no text part with a string replacement whose work grew with the square of their number. A received HTML-only message holding a very large number of entity references therefore keeps one of the listener's four worker threads busy for minutes or longer each time the recipient's webmail lists the folder, without the message being opened, so that a few such listings leave the HTTP listener unable to answer anybody. The IMAP PREVIEW response read such text the same way, holding an IMAP thread for each client that asks for the preview of such a message. The flaw is in the server's shared string class, whose replace and remove both ran in quadratic time.

Source published

8 Oct 2026 11:48:26 UTC

Source modified

8 Oct 2026 14:18:43 UTC

Observed here

23 Oct 2026 15:48:27 UTC

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CVSS 3.1 · 6.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H