Email disclosure and mail relay via reversible obfuscation
Published Apr 11, 2022 · Updated Aug 2, 2024
Weak encryption in GNUBOARD5 5.5.5 and earlier allows remote attackers to recover users’ email addresses via exposed ciphertext. The str_encrypt class adds repeating MD5-derived salt bytes to plaintext bytes before Base64 encoding, so known plaintext reveals the reusable key. Public profile or current-user ciphertext then exposes addresses despite privacy settings, while forged ciphertext accepted by formmail_send.php permits mail to attacker-chosen recipients.
Summary
What happened
Weak encryption in GNUBOARD5 5.5.5 and earlier allows remote attackers to recover users’ email addresses via exposed ciphertext. The str_encrypt class adds repeating MD5-derived salt bytes to plaintext bytes before Base64 encoding, so known plaintext reveals the reusable key. Public profile or current-user ciphertext then exposes addresses despite privacy settings, while forged ciphertext accepted by formmail_send.php permits mail to attacker-chosen recipients.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2022-1252
- Published
- Apr 11, 2022
- Updated
- Aug 2, 2024
- Vendor
- GNUBOARD
- Product
- GNUBOARD5
- Classifications
- CWE-327, T1589.002
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- unauthenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Apr 11, 2022CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Aug 2, 2024Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=unspecified <=5.5.5
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
- Known-plaintext key-recovery and email-decoding proof of conceptfunctional · demonstrated
Labels summarize the accepted research assessment. They do not indicate a test against your environment.
Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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