Cyber Resilience

CVE-2023-51765

MediumPublic PoC

Published: 24 December 2023

Published
24 December 2023
Modified
21 November 2024
KEV Added
Patch
CVSS Score v3.1 5.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
EPSS Score 0.0084 75.1th percentile
Risk Priority 11 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2023-51765 is a medium-severity Insufficient Verification of Data Authenticity (CWE-345) vulnerability in Redhat Enterprise Linux. Its CVSS base score is 5.3 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Email Spoofing (T1684.002); ranked in the top 24.9% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability details

sendmail through 8.17.2 allows SMTP smuggling in certain configurations. Remote attackers can use a published exploitation technique to inject e-mail messages with a spoofed MAIL FROM address, allowing bypass of an SPF protection mechanism. This occurs because sendmail supports <LF>.<CR><LF>…

more

but some other popular e-mail servers do not. This is resolved in 8.18 and later versions with 'o' in srv_features.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1684.002 Email Spoofing Stealth
Adversaries may fake, or spoof, a sender’s identity by modifying the value of relevant email headers in order to establish contact with victims under false pretenses.
Why these techniques?

CVE-2023-51765 enables SMTP smuggling in sendmail, allowing remote attackers to inject emails with spoofed MAIL FROM addresses and bypass SPF protections, directly facilitating Email Spoofing (T1672).

Affected Assets

sendmail
sendmail
≤ 8.18.0.2
freebsd
freebsd
≤ 11.0
redhat
enterprise linux
8.0, 9.0

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-345

Directly requires independent verification of matching output before adverse decisions, mitigating insufficient authenticity checks on data from external sources.

addresses: CWE-345

Use of approved PKI certificates provides verifiable data authenticity and origin for communications and artifacts.

addresses: CWE-345

Mandates provision of authenticity and integrity artifacts that enable verification of name/address resolution data.

addresses: CWE-345

Requires explicit verification of data authenticity from authoritative sources, preventing acceptance of unauthenticated resolution responses.

addresses: CWE-345

Control requires verification of data authenticity/integrity (e.g., checksums) after aggregation/packing, directly reducing exploitation of insufficient verification before transmission.

addresses: CWE-345

Time synchronization supports reliable freshness verification when checking data authenticity across systems or components.

addresses: CWE-345

Mandates verification of data authenticity for software, firmware, and information.

addresses: CWE-345

Provenance documentation and monitoring directly enables verification of authenticity for components and data throughout their history.

References