mailcow is a dockerized email package, with multiple containers linked in one bridged network. The Sync Job feature - which can be made available to standard users by assigning them the necessary permission - suffers from a shell command injection. A malicious user can abuse this vulnerability to obtain shell access to the Docker container running dovecot. The imapsync Perl script implements all the necessary functionality for this feature, including the XOAUTH2 authentication mechanism. This code path creates a shell command to call openssl. However, since different parts of the specified user password are included without any validation, one can simply execute additional shell commands. Notably, the default ACL for a newly-created mailcow account does not include the necessary permission. The Issue has been fixed within the 2023-03 Update (March 3rd 2023). As a temporary workaround the Syncjob ACL can be removed from all mailbox users, preventing from creating or changing existing Syncjobs.
Conclusion & alert: CVE-2023-26490 is rated High Exploit Risk (82.1/100): CVSS High severity, with high exploitation likelihood (EPSS 12.96%, 94th percentile). Core evidence: 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). EPSS rose +8.56% over the last day, indicating growing attacker interest. Mandatory action: Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.
Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.
| EDB-ID | Source | Kind | Published | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | nvd_ref | exploit_tag | Exploit-DB ↗ |
EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).
| # | Date | Old EPSS score | New EPSS score | Delta (New - Old) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2026-03-22 | 4.41% | 12.96% | +8.56% |
| 2 | 2026-03-16 | 4.55% | 4.41% | -0.14% |
| 3 | 2026-03-11 | — | 4.55% | — |
Full EPSS history (16 records total)
CVSS metrics for this CVE.
| Base score | Version | Severity | Vector | Exploitability | Impact | Score source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7.3 | 3.1 | HIGH |
|
3.9 | 3.4 | [email protected] |
| 8.8 | 3.1 | HIGH |
|
2.8 | 5.9 | [email protected] |
| Vendor | Product | Version | Raw CPE |
|---|---|---|---|
| mailcow | mailcow:_dockerized | < 2023-03 | cpe:2.3:a:mailcow:mailcow\:_dockerized:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| URL | Tags |
|---|---|
| https://github.com/mailcow/mailcow-dockerized/releases/tag/2023-03 | Release Notes |
| https://github.com/mailcow/mailcow-dockerized/security/advisories/GHSA-3j2f-wf52-cjg7 | Exploit Third Party Advisory |