Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
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AccessSupply crafted RFC 5322 group with semicolon in quoted name/comment
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ExploitConformant allow-list validator approves intended mailbox
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Executionaddressparser ends group early, re-parses tail as recipient
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ImpactNodemailer issues RCPT TO to attacker address, redirecting mail and disclosing content
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A05:2025 - Injection
ASVS 5.0
V2 - Validation and Business Logic Input validation, allowlisting
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| Exploitation Conditions | Requires an application that passes attacker-influenced address text to Nodemailer (e.g. sendMail to/cc/bcc), or a consumer of the standalone addressparser/mailparser that parses attacker-controlled message headers, AND that relies on a separate conformant RFC 5322 parser to validate recipients against an allow list - the bypass only has security value where such upstream allow-list enforcement exists. The concrete trigger is a syntactically valid RFC 5322 group containing a ';' inside a quoted display name or a comment (e.g. |
| Impact | Signals are moderately strong but not uniformly severe. The input CVSS 4.0 vector (AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:L/VA:N, 8.3) describes a network-reachable, unauthenticated flaw (PR:N) whose exploitation carries elevated attack complexity and a specific attack requirement (AC:H/AT:P) - consistent with the vendor's own framing that the bypass only bites when an upstream conformant validator plus a recipient allow list are present. Impact is confidentiality-weighted (VC:H: intended mail content is disclosed to an attacker-chosen recipient) with limited integrity (VI:L: the intended recipient is silently dropped) and no availability impact. The vuln.today priority is 'this_week' (not act_now/emergency). KEV status is not present in the input, so this is not confirmed as actively exploited; per the precision rules this is 'no public exploit identified' ONLY if there were no PoC - but the GHSA advisory embeds a working demonstration PoC, so a public PoC reference does exist. No EPSS score was supplied, so widespread-exploitation probability cannot be weighed - STATE EXPLICITLY: EPSS is missing from the provided data. Net: this is a genuine, well-characterized recipient-injection/allow-list-bypass that merits prompt patching for any Node.js application that validates attacker-influenced recipient lists, but the AC:H/AT:P preconditions and absence of KEV/EPSS argue for targeted rather than mass-exploitable risk - not an all-environments emergency. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | An application lets a user supply a recipient address, validates it with a conformant RFC 5322 parser, and only permits addresses in its own domain. The attacker submits the group value |
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Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – Nov 03, 2026
Nodemailer 3.0.0 through 10.1.3 contains a recipient-injection flaw in its bundled addressparser: a semicolon inside a quoted display name or comment inside an RFC 5322 group terminates the group early, so text a conformant parser treats as display text is re-parsed as a live recipient address. An application that validates user-supplied recipient lists with a conformant parser and then hands the same text to Nodemailer can be made to deliver mail to an attacker-chosen address outside its allow list - for example G: (a; <evil@evil.com>) <v@victim.com>; is approved as v@victim.com but resolved by Nodemailer to evil@evil.com, disclosing message content and suppressing delivery to the intended recipient. The vendor fixed this in 10.1.4; a public proof-of-concept reference is documented in the GitHub advisory, and no confirmed active exploitation or public working exploit code was identified at time of analysis.
RemediationAI
Upgrade nodemailer to 10.1.4 or later, the vendor-released fix that tracks quoted strings and comments inside a group and only honours a semicolon outside them; the upstream commit is 1cd57d2b8c49dff048c21cdbafdb54439a7f07e2 and the advisory is https://github.com/nodemailer/nodemailer/security/advisories/GHSA-m943-m63m-w62w. Where upgrading is not immediately possible, the exposure is limited to deployments that pass attacker-influenced address text into Nodemailer or parse untrusted headers with mailparser while enforcing recipient allow lists via a separate conformant parser: such deployments should stop trusting a divergent second parser for the same string and instead canonicalise recipients against Nodemailer's own resolved envelope, rejecting any message whose resolved recipient set differs from the validated set - noting this adds a post-parse comparison step and requires validating against the exact value handed to sendMail. Applications with no recipient allow list gain no boundary from this flaw and can schedule the upgrade normally. Review the VulnCheck advisory at https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/nodemailer-3.0.0-before-10.1.4-recipient-injection-via-addressparser-group-parsing for additional detail.
Affected VersionsENISA
Affected Packages
Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affects your stack
Affects 1 package in euvd
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Technical ContextAI · show details
The flaw is a parser-differential issue (CWE-20 improper input validation, CWE-436 interpretation conflict) in addressparser, the RFC 5322 address-list parser shipped with Nodemailer and also consumed standalone and by mailparser. addressparser terminated a group at the first semicolon encountered, including a semicolon that RFC 5322 places inside a quoted display name or a comment, and then re-parsed the remaining text as top-level recipients with the quoting context flipped. The consequence is that display text or comment content becomes a live mailbox address, so two conformant-in-isolation readers of the same string disagree: the vendor's PoC shows Python's email._header_value_parser.get_address_list reading G: (a; <evil@evil.com>) <v@victim.com>; as the single mailbox v@victim.com with no defects, while Nodemailer yields the recipient evil@evil.com. Because the envelope is built from the same parse, sendMail({ to: ... }) issues an RCPT TO to the attacker's address. The vendor fix tracks quoted strings and comments inside a group and honours only a semicolon outside them. The prerequisite is an application that passes attacker-influenced address text to Nodemailer or parses attacker-controlled headers with mailparser, and that performs its recipient allow-list enforcement with a separate conformant parser; where no such upstream validation exists there is no boundary to cross. Affected package range is npm/nodemailer >= 3.0.0, < 10.1.4, matching CPE cpe:2.3:a:nodemailer:nodemailer:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*.
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Severity by source
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:L/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Attacker needs no app access or auth (PR:N/AV:N) but exploitation depends on an upstream conformant allow-list validator (AC:H); mail content disclosed (C:H) and intended delivery subverted (I:L).
Primary rating from Vendor (VulnCheck).
CVSS VectorVendor: VulnCheck
Lifecycle Timeline
2DescriptionCVE.org
Nodemailer from 3.0.0 before 10.1.4 contains a parsing flaw in addressparser that ends an RFC 5322 group at a semicolon inside quoted display names or comments. Attackers can submit crafted group addresses that conformant validators approve, redirecting mail to attacker-chosen recipients and bypassing recipient allow lists.
Articles & Coverage 1
Technical POC Analysis
CWE-20 (Improper Input Validation); the advisory additionally classifies it as CWE-436 (Interpretation Conflict), which is the more descriptive label for the mechanics.
Full technical POC analysis - root cause, step-by-step exploitation and patch breakdown - is part of the Pro and Business plans.
Executive ViewAI
A high-severity flaw in Nodemailer, a widely used email library, allows attackers to bypass recipient validation and redirect messages to unauthorized addresses. This impacts any application that validates recipient lists with a conformant parser before sending via Nodemailer, potentially leading to data leakage and delivery failures. Leadership should prioritize remediation to prevent unauthorized disclosure of sensitive communications.
Apply vendor patch. If immediate upgrade is not possible, enforce strict RFC 5322 validation and sanitize recipient inputs to remove semicolons within quoted strings or comments, or use an alternative email library until patched.
Threat Intelligence Overview
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
Authentication bypass attacks exploit flaws in the verification mechanisms that control access to systems and applications.
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EUVD-2026-115957
GHSA-q9mw-f56c-cmvf
NVD
CVE.org
Vulnrichment
Exploit-DB