CVE-2026-7666 | Potential unencrypted email transmission via STARTTLS in the SMTP backend

An issue was discovered in Django 6.0 before 6.0.6 and 5.2 before 5.2.15. `django.core.mail.backends.smtp.EmailBackend` in Django fails to prevent reuse of a partially-initialized connection after a failed `STARTTLS` handshake when `fail_silently=True`, which allows on-path network attackers to read email content via cleartext interception. Earlier, unsupported Django series (such as 5.0.x, 4.1.x, and 3.2.x) were not evaluated and may also be affected. Django would like to thank Kasper Dupont for reporting this issue.

Published: 2026-06-03 Last update: 2026-06-05 Assigner: 6a34fbeb-21d4-45e7-8e0a-62b95bc12c92 Source: 6a34fbeb-21d4-45e7-8e0a-62b95bc12c92
NVD Status：Analyzed，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2026-7666 is rated Low Risk (11/100): CVSS Low severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.02%). Low composite risk—no urgent action required; patch on your normal maintenance cycle and revisit priority if CVSS or EPSS increases.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2026-7666

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 2026-06-04 — 0.02% —

Full EPSS history (1 record total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2026-7666

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
2.3 4.0 LOW
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:P/VC:L/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network.
Attack complexity (AC:H)
Exploitation depends on constrained or hard-to-reproduce conditions.
Attack requirements (AT:P)
Additional preconditions must be present for exploitation.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No privileges are required.
User interaction (UI:P)
A user has to participate (for example click/open/approve).
Vulnerable system confidentiality impact (VC:L)
Limited confidentiality impact on the vulnerable system.
Vulnerable system integrity impact (VI:N)
No integrity impact on the vulnerable system.
Vulnerable system availability impact (VA:N)
No availability impact on the vulnerable system.
Subsequent system confidentiality impact (SC:N)
No confidentiality impact on subsequent systems.
Subsequent system integrity impact (SI:N)
No integrity impact on subsequent systems.
Subsequent system availability impact (SA:N)
No availability impact on subsequent systems.
Exploit maturity (threat) (E:X)
Not defined: no reliable threat intelligence; scoring assumes the worst case (equivalent to Attacked).
Confidentiality requirement (CR:X)
Not defined: insufficient information; scoring treats this like High (worst case).
Integrity requirement (IR:X)
Not defined: insufficient information; scoring treats this like High (worst case).
Availability requirement (AR:X)
Not defined: insufficient information; scoring treats this like High (worst case).
Modified attack vector (MAV:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base Attack Vector (AV).
Modified attack complexity (MAC:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base Attack Complexity (AC).
Modified attack requirements (MAT:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base Attack Requirements (AT).
Modified privileges required (MPR:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base Privileges Required (PR).
Modified user interaction (MUI:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base User Interaction (UI).
Modified vulnerable system confidentiality impact (MVC:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base VC metric.
Modified vulnerable system integrity impact (MVI:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base VI metric.
Modified vulnerable system availability impact (MVA:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base VA metric.
Modified subsequent system confidentiality impact (MSC:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base SC metric.
Modified subsequent system integrity impact (MSI:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base SI metric.
Modified subsequent system availability impact (MSA:X)
Not defined: scoring uses the Base SA metric.
Safety (supplemental) (S:X)
Not evaluated.
Automatable (supplemental) (AU:X)
Not evaluated.
Recovery (supplemental) (R:X)
Not evaluated.
Value density (supplemental) (V:X)
Not evaluated.
Vulnerability response effort (supplemental) (RE:X)
Not evaluated.
Provider urgency (supplemental) (U:X)
Not evaluated.
 — — 6a34fbeb-21d4-45e7-8e0a-62b95bc12c92
3.1 3.1 LOW
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:H)
Even with access, the exploit needs extra luck, timing, or a fussy environment to actually work.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 1.6 1.4 6a34fbeb-21d4-45e7-8e0a-62b95bc12c92

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2026-7666

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2026-7666

GHSA-mm6v-q8q9-pgcf · Severity: low — An issue was discovered in Django 6.0 before 6.0.6 and 5.2 before 5.2.15. `django.core.mail...

OS Trackers for CVE-2026-7666

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2026-7666 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (python-django), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): open 4, resolved 1. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2026-7666
redhat low — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-7666
suse high — https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-7666/
ubuntu low CVE-2026-7666 low priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (python-django), 9 status rows across 9 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, questing, resolute, trusty, upstream, xenial): needs-triage 9. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2026-7666

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2026-7666

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
djangoproject django >= 5.2, < 5.2.15 cpe:2.3:a:djangoproject:django:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
djangoproject django >= 6.0, < 6.0.6 cpe:2.3:a:djangoproject:django:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2026-7666

cvelogic Threat Intelligence