dovecot CVE Vulnerabilities & Metrics

Focus on dovecot vulnerabilities and metrics.

Last updated: 08 Mar 2025, 23:25 UTC

About dovecot Security Exposure

This page consolidates all known Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) associated with dovecot. We track both calendar-based metrics (using fixed periods) and rolling metrics (using gliding windows) to give you a comprehensive view of security trends and risk evolution. Use these insights to assess risk and plan your patching strategy.

For a broader perspective on cybersecurity threats, explore the comprehensive list of CVEs by vendor and product. Stay updated on critical vulnerabilities affecting major software and hardware providers.

Global CVE Overview

Total dovecot CVEs: 28
Earliest CVE date: 25 Apr 2007, 15:19 UTC
Latest CVE date: 17 Jul 2022, 19:15 UTC

Latest CVE reference: CVE-2022-30550

Rolling Stats

30-day Count (Rolling): 0
365-day Count (Rolling): 0

Calendar-based Variation

Calendar-based Variation compares a fixed calendar period (e.g., this month versus the same month last year), while Rolling Growth Rate uses a continuous window (e.g., last 30 days versus the previous 30 days) to capture trends independent of calendar boundaries.

Variations & Growth

Month Variation (Calendar): 0%
Year Variation (Calendar): 0%

Month Growth Rate (30-day Rolling): 0.0%
Year Growth Rate (365-day Rolling): 0.0%

Monthly CVE Trends (current vs previous Year)

Annual CVE Trends (Last 20 Years)

Critical dovecot CVEs (CVSS ≥ 9) Over 20 Years

CVSS Stats

Average CVSS: 5.07

Max CVSS: 7.8

Critical CVEs (≥9): 0

CVSS Range vs. Count

Range Count
0.0-3.9 5
4.0-6.9 44
7.0-8.9 4
9.0-10.0 0

CVSS Distribution Chart

Top 5 Highest CVSS dovecot CVEs

These are the five CVEs with the highest CVSS scores for dovecot, sorted by severity first and recency.

All CVEs for dovecot

CVE-2022-30550 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 0 17 Jul 2022, 19:15 UTC

An issue was discovered in the auth component in Dovecot 2.2 and 2.3 before 2.3.20. When two passdb configuration entries exist with the same driver and args settings, incorrect username_filter and mechanism settings can be applied to passdb definitions. These incorrectly applied settings can lead to an unintended security configuration and can permit privilege escalation in certain configurations. The documentation does not advise against the use of passdb definitions that have the same driver and args settings. One such configuration would be where an administrator wishes to use the same PAM configuration or passwd file for both normal and master users but use the username_filter setting to restrict which of the users is able to be a master user.

CVE-2021-33515 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 5.8 28 Jun 2021, 13:15 UTC

The submission service in Dovecot before 2.3.15 allows STARTTLS command injection in lib-smtp. Sensitive information can be redirected to an attacker-controlled address.

CVE-2020-28200 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 4.0 28 Jun 2021, 13:15 UTC

The Sieve engine in Dovecot before 2.3.15 allows Uncontrolled Resource Consumption, as demonstrated by a situation with a complex regular expression for the regex extension.

CVE-2021-29157 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 2.1 28 Jun 2021, 12:15 UTC

Dovecot before 2.3.15 allows ../ Path Traversal. An attacker with access to the local filesystem can trick OAuth2 authentication into using an HS256 validation key from an attacker-controlled location. This occurs during use of local JWT validation with the posix fs driver.

CVE-2020-25275 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 5.0 04 Jan 2021, 17:15 UTC

Dovecot before 2.3.13 has Improper Input Validation in lda, lmtp, and imap, leading to an application crash via a crafted email message with certain choices for ten thousand MIME parts.

CVE-2020-24386 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 4.9 04 Jan 2021, 17:15 UTC

An issue was discovered in Dovecot before 2.3.13. By using IMAP IDLE, an authenticated attacker can trigger unhibernation via attacker-controlled parameters, leading to access to other users' email messages (and path disclosure).

CVE-2020-12674 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 5.0 12 Aug 2020, 16:15 UTC

In Dovecot before 2.3.11.3, sending a specially formatted RPA request will crash the auth service because a length of zero is mishandled.

CVE-2020-12673 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 5.0 12 Aug 2020, 16:15 UTC

In Dovecot before 2.3.11.3, sending a specially formatted NTLM request will crash the auth service because of an out-of-bounds read.

CVE-2020-12100 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 5.0 12 Aug 2020, 16:15 UTC

In Dovecot before 2.3.11.3, uncontrolled recursion in submission, lmtp, and lda allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (resource consumption) via a crafted e-mail message with deeply nested MIME parts.

CVE-2020-10967 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 5.0 18 May 2020, 15:15 UTC

In Dovecot before 2.3.10.1, remote unauthenticated attackers can crash the lmtp or submission process by sending mail with an empty localpart.

CVE-2020-10958 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 5.0 18 May 2020, 14:15 UTC

In Dovecot before 2.3.10.1, a crafted SMTP/LMTP message triggers an unauthenticated use-after-free bug in submission-login, submission, or lmtp, and can lead to a crash under circumstances involving many newlines after a command.

CVE-2020-10957 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 5.0 18 May 2020, 14:15 UTC

In Dovecot before 2.3.10.1, unauthenticated sending of malformed parameters to a NOOP command causes a NULL Pointer Dereference and crash in submission-login, submission, or lmtp.

CVE-2020-7957 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 5.0 12 Feb 2020, 17:15 UTC

The IMAP and LMTP components in Dovecot 2.3.9 before 2.3.9.3 mishandle snippet generation when many characters must be read to compute the snippet and a trailing > character exists. This causes a denial of service in which the recipient cannot read all of their messages.

CVE-2020-7046 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 7.8 12 Feb 2020, 17:15 UTC

lib-smtp in submission-login and lmtp in Dovecot 2.3.9 before 2.3.9.3 mishandles truncated UTF-8 data in command parameters, as demonstrated by the unauthenticated triggering of a submission-login infinite loop.

CVE-2019-19722 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 5.0 13 Dec 2019, 17:15 UTC

In Dovecot before 2.3.9.2, an attacker can crash a push-notification driver with a crafted email when push notifications are used, because of a NULL Pointer Dereference. The email must use a group address as either the sender or the recipient.

CVE-2016-4983 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 2.1 05 Nov 2019, 22:15 UTC

A postinstall script in the dovecot rpm allows local users to read the contents of newly created SSL/TLS key files.

CVE-2019-11500 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 7.5 29 Aug 2019, 14:15 UTC

In Dovecot before 2.2.36.4 and 2.3.x before 2.3.7.2 (and Pigeonhole before 0.5.7.2), protocol processing can fail for quoted strings. This occurs because '\0' characters are mishandled, and can lead to out-of-bounds writes and remote code execution.

CVE-2019-11494 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 5.0 08 May 2019, 18:29 UTC

In the IMAP Server in Dovecot 2.3.3 through 2.3.5.2, the submission-login service crashes when the client disconnects prematurely during the AUTH command.

CVE-2019-11499 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 5.0 08 May 2019, 17:29 UTC

In the IMAP Server in Dovecot 2.3.3 through 2.3.5.2, the submission-login component crashes if AUTH PLAIN is attempted over a TLS secured channel with an unacceptable authentication message.

CVE-2019-10691 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 5.0 24 Apr 2019, 17:29 UTC

The JSON encoder in Dovecot before 2.3.5.2 allows attackers to repeatedly crash the authentication service by attempting to authenticate with an invalid UTF-8 sequence as the username.

CVE-2019-7524 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 7.2 28 Mar 2019, 14:29 UTC

In Dovecot before 2.2.36.3 and 2.3.x before 2.3.5.1, a local attacker can cause a buffer overflow in the indexer-worker process, which can be used to elevate to root. This occurs because of missing checks in the fts and pop3-uidl components.

CVE-2019-3814 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 4.9 27 Mar 2019, 13:29 UTC

It was discovered that Dovecot before versions 2.2.36.1 and 2.3.4.1 incorrectly handled client certificates. A remote attacker in possession of a valid certificate with an empty username field could possibly use this issue to impersonate other users.

CVE-2017-2669 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 5.0 21 Jun 2018, 13:29 UTC

Dovecot before version 2.2.29 is vulnerable to a denial of service. When 'dict' passdb and userdb were used for user authentication, the username sent by the IMAP/POP3 client was sent through var_expand() to perform %variable expansion. Sending specially crafted %variable fields could result in excessive memory usage causing the process to crash (and restart), or excessive CPU usage causing all authentications to hang.

CVE-2017-15130 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 4.3 02 Mar 2018, 15:29 UTC

A denial of service flaw was found in dovecot before 2.2.34. An attacker able to generate random SNI server names could exploit TLS SNI configuration lookups, leading to excessive memory usage and the process to restart.

CVE-2017-14461 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 5.5 02 Mar 2018, 15:29 UTC

A specially crafted email delivered over SMTP and passed on to Dovecot by MTA can trigger an out of bounds read resulting in potential sensitive information disclosure and denial of service. In order to trigger this vulnerability, an attacker needs to send a specially crafted email message to the server.

CVE-2017-15132 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 5.0 25 Jan 2018, 20:29 UTC

A flaw was found in dovecot 2.0 up to 2.2.33 and 2.3.0. An abort of SASL authentication results in a memory leak in dovecot's auth client used by login processes. The leak has impact in high performance configuration where same login processes are reused and can cause the process to crash due to memory exhaustion.

CVE-2015-3420 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 4.3 19 Sep 2017, 15:29 UTC

The ssl-proxy-openssl.c function in Dovecot before 2.2.17, when SSLv3 is disabled, allow remote attackers to cause a denial of service (login process crash) via vectors related to handshake failures.

CVE-2016-8652 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 4.3 17 Feb 2017, 02:59 UTC

The auth component in Dovecot before 2.2.27, when auth-policy is configured, allows a remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) by aborting authentication without setting a username.

CVE-2013-2111 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 5.0 27 May 2014, 14:55 UTC

The IMAP functionality in Dovecot before 2.2.2 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (infinite loop and CPU consumption) via invalid APPEND parameters.

CVE-2014-3430 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 5.0 14 May 2014, 19:55 UTC

Dovecot 1.1 before 2.2.13 and dovecot-ee before 2.1.7.7 and 2.2.x before 2.2.12.12 does not properly close old connections, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (resource consumption) via an incomplete SSL/TLS handshake for an IMAP/POP3 connection.

CVE-2013-6171 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 5.8 09 Dec 2013, 16:36 UTC

checkpassword-reply in Dovecot before 2.2.7 performs setuid operations to a user who is authenticating, which allows local users to bypass authentication and access virtual email accounts by attaching to the process and using a restricted file descriptor to modify account information in the response to the dovecot-auth server.

CVE-2011-4318 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 5.8 07 Mar 2013, 01:55 UTC

Dovecot 2.0.x before 2.0.16, when ssl or starttls is enabled and hostname is used to define the proxy destination, does not verify that the server hostname matches a domain name in the subject's Common Name (CN) of the X.509 certificate, which allows man-in-the-middle attackers to spoof SSL servers via a valid certificate for a different hostname.

CVE-2011-2167 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 6.5 24 May 2011, 23:55 UTC

script-login in Dovecot 2.0.x before 2.0.13 does not follow the chroot configuration setting, which might allow remote authenticated users to conduct directory traversal attacks by leveraging a script.

CVE-2011-2166 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 6.5 24 May 2011, 23:55 UTC

script-login in Dovecot 2.0.x before 2.0.13 does not follow the user and group configuration settings, which might allow remote authenticated users to bypass intended access restrictions by leveraging a script.

CVE-2011-1929 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 5.0 24 May 2011, 23:55 UTC

lib-mail/message-header-parser.c in Dovecot 1.2.x before 1.2.17 and 2.0.x before 2.0.13 does not properly handle '\0' characters in header names, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (daemon crash or mailbox corruption) via a crafted e-mail message.

CVE-2010-3780 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 4.0 06 Oct 2010, 21:00 UTC

Dovecot 1.2.x before 1.2.15 allows remote authenticated users to cause a denial of service (master process outage) by simultaneously disconnecting many (1) IMAP or (2) POP3 sessions.

CVE-2010-3779 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 3.5 06 Oct 2010, 21:00 UTC

Dovecot 1.2.x before 1.2.15 and 2.0.x before 2.0.beta2 grants the admin permission to the owner of each mailbox in a non-public namespace, which might allow remote authenticated users to bypass intended access restrictions by changing the ACL of a mailbox, as demonstrated by a symlinked shared mailbox.

CVE-2010-3707 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 5.5 06 Oct 2010, 17:00 UTC

plugins/acl/acl-backend-vfile.c in Dovecot 1.2.x before 1.2.15 and 2.0.x before 2.0.5 interprets an ACL entry as a directive to add to the permissions granted by another ACL entry, instead of a directive to replace the permissions granted by another ACL entry, in certain circumstances involving more specific entries that occur after less specific entries, which allows remote authenticated users to bypass intended access restrictions via a request to read or modify a mailbox.

CVE-2010-3706 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 5.5 06 Oct 2010, 17:00 UTC

plugins/acl/acl-backend-vfile.c in Dovecot 1.2.x before 1.2.15 and 2.0.x before 2.0.5 interprets an ACL entry as a directive to add to the permissions granted by another ACL entry, instead of a directive to replace the permissions granted by another ACL entry, in certain circumstances involving the private namespace of a user, which allows remote authenticated users to bypass intended access restrictions via a request to read or modify a mailbox.

CVE-2010-3304 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 6.4 24 Sep 2010, 19:00 UTC

The ACL plugin in Dovecot 1.2.x before 1.2.13 propagates INBOX ACLs to newly created mailboxes in certain configurations, which might allow remote attackers to read mailboxes that have unintended weak ACLs.

CVE-2010-0745 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 5.0 20 May 2010, 17:30 UTC

Unspecified vulnerability in Dovecot 1.2.x before 1.2.11 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (CPU consumption) via long headers in an e-mail message.

CVE-2009-3897 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 4.6 24 Nov 2009, 17:30 UTC

Dovecot 1.2.x before 1.2.8 sets 0777 permissions during creation of certain directories at installation time, which allows local users to access arbitrary user accounts by replacing the auth socket, related to the parent directories of the base_dir directory, and possibly the base_dir directory itself.

CVE-2009-3235 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 7.5 17 Sep 2009, 10:30 UTC

Multiple stack-based buffer overflows in the Sieve plugin in Dovecot 1.0 before 1.0.4 and 1.1 before 1.1.7, as derived from Cyrus libsieve, allow context-dependent attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) and possibly execute arbitrary code via a crafted SIEVE script, as demonstrated by forwarding an e-mail message to a large number of recipients, a different vulnerability than CVE-2009-2632.

CVE-2008-5301 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 6.4 01 Dec 2008, 17:30 UTC

Directory traversal vulnerability in the ManageSieve implementation in Dovecot 1.0.15, 1.1, and 1.2 allows remote attackers to read and modify arbitrary .sieve files via a ".." (dot dot) in a script name.

CVE-2008-4907 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 4.3 04 Nov 2008, 00:58 UTC

The message parsing feature in Dovecot 1.1.4 and 1.1.5, when using the FETCH ENVELOPE command in the IMAP client, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (persistent crash) via an email with a malformed From address, which triggers an assertion error, aka "invalid message address parsing bug."

CVE-2008-4870 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 2.1 01 Nov 2008, 00:00 UTC

dovecot 1.0.7 in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5, and possibly Fedora, uses world-readable permissions for dovecot.conf, which allows local users to obtain the ssl_key_password parameter value.

CVE-2008-4578 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 5.0 15 Oct 2008, 20:08 UTC

The ACL plugin in Dovecot before 1.1.4 allows attackers to bypass intended access restrictions by using the "k" right to create unauthorized "parent/child/child" mailboxes.

CVE-2008-4577 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 6.4 15 Oct 2008, 20:08 UTC

The ACL plugin in Dovecot before 1.1.4 treats negative access rights as if they are positive access rights, which allows attackers to bypass intended access restrictions.

CVE-2008-1218 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 6.8 10 Mar 2008, 23:44 UTC

Argument injection vulnerability in Dovecot 1.0.x before 1.0.13, and 1.1.x before 1.1.rc3, when using blocking passdbs, allows remote attackers to bypass the password check via a password containing TAB characters, which are treated as argument delimiters that enable the skip_password_check field to be specified.

CVE-2008-1199 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 4.4 06 Mar 2008, 21:44 UTC

Dovecot before 1.0.11, when configured to use mail_extra_groups to allow Dovecot to create dotlocks in /var/mail, might allow local users to read sensitive mail files for other users, or modify files or directories that are writable by group, via a symlink attack.

CVE-2007-6598 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 6.8 04 Jan 2008, 02:46 UTC

Dovecot before 1.0.10, with certain configuration options including use of %variables, does not properly maintain the LDAP+auth cache, which might allow remote authenticated users to login as a different user who has the same password.

CVE-2007-4211 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 6.0 08 Aug 2007, 02:17 UTC

The ACL plugin in Dovecot before 1.0.3 allows remote authenticated users with the insert right to save certain flags via a (1) COPY or (2) APPEND command.

CVE-2007-2231 dovecot vulnerability CVSS: 4.3 25 Apr 2007, 15:19 UTC

Directory traversal vulnerability in index/mbox/mbox-storage.c in Dovecot before 1.0.rc29, when using the zlib plugin, allows remote attackers to read arbitrary gzipped (.gz) mailboxes (mbox files) via a .. (dot dot) sequence in the mailbox name.