aiosmtplib vulnerable to SMTP command injection via CR/LF in sender/recipient address

Summary

aiosmtplib's SMTP.mail(), SMTP.rcpt(), SMTP.vrfy() and SMTP.expn() send the caller-supplied email address to the server without rejecting embedded CR/LF (\r\n) bytes. An address that contains a CR/LF is written verbatim onto the SMTP control connection, so the bytes after the CRLF are framed by the server as one or more additional, standalone SMTP command lines. A caller that passes an attacker-influenced sender or recipient address into mail()/rcpt() (or vrfy()/expn()) therefore allows SMTP command injection (CWE-93 / CWE-77): the attacker can smuggle arbitrary SMTP verbs such as MAIL FROM, RCPT TO, RSET, DATA, or AUTH into the session. Injected commands will cause the SMTP instance to hang, but all commands required to complete the envelope could be sent in one address string.

The SMTP.sendmail() command will pass sender and recipient addresses verbatim through to SMTP.mail() & SMTP.rcpt(), and so is also vulnerable. SMTP.send_message() is not affected.

Impact

Severity: medium. Type: SMTP protocol command injection (CWE-93 — Improper Neutralization of CRLF Sequences; CWE-77 — Command Injection).

When an application built on aiosmtplib derives the envelope sender or any recipient from data an attacker can influence (a web form etc.) and passes it to mail()/rcpt() (directly, or via sendmail()/send() without a Message object), the attacker can:

• desynchronize the command/response pipeline and cause the aiosmtplib client to hang, resulting in a possible denial of service
• inject multiple commands in one address to send an arbitrary message

The address only needs to reach mail()/rcpt()/vrfy()/expn(); no attacker control over the SMTP server is required.

Vulnerable versions

Affected version: aiosmtplib 5.1.0 (latest at time of report) and all earlier releases.

Credit

Reported by tonghuaroot.