Cyber Resilience

CVE-2023-51747

High

Published: 27 February 2024

Published
27 February 2024
Modified
05 May 2025
KEV Added
Patch
CVSS Score v3.1 7.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:N
EPSS Score 0.0024 47.8th percentile
Risk Priority 14 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2023-51747 is a high-severity Improper Input Validation (CWE-20) vulnerability in Apache James. Its CVSS base score is 7.1 (High).

Operationally, ranked at the 47.8th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability details

Apache James prior to versions 3.8.1 and 3.7.5 is vulnerable to SMTP smuggling. A lenient behaviour in line delimiter handling might create a difference of interpretation between the sender and the receiver which can be exploited by an attacker to…

more

forge an SMTP envelop, allowing for instance to bypass SPF checks. The patch implies enforcement of CRLF as a line delimiter as part of the DATA transaction. We recommend James users to upgrade to non vulnerable versions.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.

Affected Assets

apache
james
3.7.5, 3.8.1

Mitigating Controls

Likely Mitigating Controls AI

Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.

addresses: CWE-290

Reveals spoofed logon attempts through unexpected previous logon timestamps upon legitimate login.

addresses: CWE-290

Training specifically addresses recognizing spoofed communications and phishing that enable authentication bypass.

addresses: CWE-290

Requiring verifiable identity evidence at appropriate assurance levels makes it substantially harder for attackers to successfully spoof or impersonate users to obtain accounts.

addresses: CWE-290

Unique device authentication makes successful spoofing of device identity substantially more difficult to achieve.

addresses: CWE-290

Unique identification of non-organizational users reduces the feasibility of authentication bypass by spoofing.

addresses: CWE-290

Unique identification and authentication of services before communications makes spoofing of service identities substantially harder.

addresses: CWE-20

Security testing and developer training directly verify and enforce proper input validation, reducing exploitability of injection and malformed-data weaknesses.

addresses: CWE-20

Security testing and evaluation at multiple SDLC stages directly detects missing or flawed input validation, with the required remediation process ensuring fixes are applied.

References