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TI-2026-29920 Aliases CVE-2026-41319GHSA-9j88-vvj5-vhgr

MailKit has STARTTLS Response Injection via unflushed stream buffer that enables SASL mechanism downgrade

Priority MEDIUM 62CWE-74Published · Updated

Key facts

Attack vector
Network
Privileges required
None
User interaction
Required
Attack complexity
Low
Impact type
—
Confidentiality · integrity · availability
None · High · None
Fix status
Fixed

Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · CNA. Fix status from CNA and GitHub.

Summary

MailKit is a cross-platform mail client library built on top of MimeKit. A STARTTLS Response Injection vulnerability in versions prior to 4.16.0 allows a Man-in-the-Middle attacker to inject arbitrary protocol responses across the plaintext-to-TLS trust boundary, enabling SASL authentication mechanism downgrade (e.g., forcing PLAIN instead of SCRAM-SHA-256). The internal read buffer in `SmtpStream`, `ImapStream`, and `Pop3Stream` is not flushed when the underlying stream is replaced with `SslStream` during STARTTLS upgrade, causing pre-TLS attacker-injected data to be processed as trusted post-TLS responses. Version 4.16.0 patches the issue.

Why it matters now

Exploitation Proof of concept CISA SSVC · not in CISA KEV
EPSS 0.00223 12th percentileScored 2026-11-07
Public exploit Yes 1 exploit referenceTagged by NVD
Fix Fixed MailKit (jstedfast): 4.16.0MailKit (NuGet): 4.16.0

SSVC decision points

CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3

Exploitation
Poc
Automatable
No
Technical impact
Partial

The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.

Affected products

VendorProductAffected versionsFixed inStatusSource
jstedfastMailKitbefore 4.16.04.16.0Patch availableCNA
—MailKit (NuGet)before 4.16.04.16.0Patch availableGHSA-9j88-vvj5-vhgr
  • MailKit Vendorjstedfast Affected before 4.16.0 Fixed in 4.16.0 Patch available CNA
  • MailKit (NuGet) Vendor— Affected before 4.16.0 Fixed in 4.16.0 Patch available GHSA-9j88-vvj5-vhgr

CPE configurations NVD · 1

CPEVersionsRoleVendor
cpe:2.3:a:jstedfast:mailkit:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*before 4.16.0Vulnerablejstedfast
  • cpe:2.3:a:jstedfast:mailkit:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* Versions before 4.16.0 Vulnerable ·jstedfast

Remediation

  • Fix · CNA MailKit (jstedfast) Fixed in 4.16.0
  • Fix · GHSA-9j88-vvj5-vhgr MailKit (NuGet) Fixed in 4.16.0 Advisory →

Timeline

  1. 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-41319
  2. 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-9j88-vvj5-vhgr

References

Sources