CVE-2022-28220 STARTTLS command injection in Apache JAMES

What is CVE-2022-28220?

CVE-2022-28220 is a high-severity command injection vulnerability in Apache James, published on 8 Sep 2022. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

Official description

Apache James prior to release 3.6.3 and 3.7.1 is vulnerable to a buffering attack relying on the use of the STARTTLS command. Fix of CVE-2021-38542, which solved similar problem fron Apache James 3.6.1, is subject to a parser differential and do not take into account concurrent requests.

Weakness: CWE-77

Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-28220?

4 open source packages ship an affected version, including org.apache.james:james-server. It affects 1 product.

Products include Apache James.

How do I fix CVE-2022-28220?

Upgrade org.apache.james:james-server to a fixed version for your release line: 3.6.3 or 3.7.1.

Upgrade, and pass arguments to programs as a list instead of through a shell. More about Command injection.

Is CVE-2022-28220 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-28220 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Apache James

• CVE-2023-51518 Apache James server: Privilege escalation via JMX pre-authentication deserialisation Critical 9.8
• CVE-2019-0228 Vulnerability that affects org.apache.pdfbox:pdfbox Critical 9.8
• CVE-2021-40525 Sieve file storage vulnerable to path traversal attacks Critical 9.1
• CVE-2023-26269 Apache James server: Privilege escalation through unauthenticated JMX High 7.8
• CVE-2006-2806 Denial of service in n/a High 7.8

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as GHSA-w45j-f5g5-w94x.