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Fencer Intel
medium 5.9

CVE-2026-102471 json

CRLF header injection in vertx-mail-client allows manipulation of outgoing SMTP messages

published 26d ago modified 20d ago also EUVD-2026-101577

cvss
5.9
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.3%
EPSS 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 24%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

In Eclipse Vert.x versions [4.0.0, 4.5.34] or [5.0.0,5.0.12] or [5.1.0,5.1.9] or [5.2.0, 5.2.0], the vertx-mail-client does not sanitize CR (\r) or LF (\n) characters in user-supplied email header names and values before writing them into the SMTP DATA section. A CR/LF sequence embedded in a name or value passed to MailMessage.addHeader(), MailMessage.setHeaders(), MailAttachment.addHeader(), or MailAttachment.setHeaders() is written verbatim to the wire, allowing an attacker to inject arbitrary headers (e.g. Bcc, Reply-To, Content-Type) or prepend body content to the outgoing message.

The same weakness affects MIME part metadata set via MailAttachment.setContentType(), setDisposition(), setDescription(), and setContentId(), which are written directly into MIME part headers without validation.

A secondary weakness in Utils.mustEncode(char) additionally allows a bare LF in a From display-name to bypass Q-encoding and reach the wire unchanged.

An unauthenticated attacker who can control any header name, header value, or attachment metadata field passed to the mail client (for example via a web form or API that feeds into MailMessage) can exploit this to redirect email copies, spoof headers, or tamper with message structure.

The impacted component is io.vertx:vertx-mail-client.

Patch / fix

  • io.vertx vertx-mail-client 4.5.35, 5.1.10, 5.2.1
  • eclipse vert.x 4.5.35, 5.1.10, 5.2.1

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Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-102471 updated cvss 6.5

io.vertx/vertx-mail-client: vertx-mail-client: Email header injection via unsanitized CR and LF characters

  • Red Hat build of Quarkus vertx-mail-client 4.5.34.redhat-00001
    affected: workaround, no fix available “Fix deferred”

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
yes
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
26d ago

Exploit prediction

0.31% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 24% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 4.0 6.9 CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:L/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
CNA 4.0 6.9 CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:L/VA:N/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:X
NVD 3.1 5.9 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • Eclipse Foundation Eclipse Vert.x

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-93 Improper Neutralization of CRLF Sequences

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

CPEs and fixed versions use Anchore's correction of NVD's data: Added CPE configurations because not yet analyzed by NVD.