Public vulnerability disclosure

CVE-2026-126609

Improper Certificate Validation in hMailServer

publishedCWE-295

Progressive Robot hMailServer 6.2.25 through 6.3.7 on Windows, with a PostgreSQL database, the connection's sslmode require, verify-ca or verify-full, and a root certificate file named by PostgreSQLSslRootCert (from 6.2.25) or, with TlsMode=verify-full and neither PostgreSQL key set, by TlsCaFile (from 6.3.4), hands the file's name to libpq as bytes in the system's ANSI code page (up to 6.3.5 as Latin-1 bytes, which on code page 1252 are the code page's own for U+00A0 to U+00FF), and libpq looks for the file by those bytes and then hands the same bytes to OpenSSL, whose file opening on Windows reads a name as UTF-8 first and opens the file at that reading when one is there. When every byte of the name outside ASCII also reads as UTF-8 - for example U+00C3 U+00A9, the bytes C3 A9 on code page 1252, which are U+00E9 in UTF-8 - the database server's certificate was checked against the file at that other name whenever one was there, which allows a local attacker who can create that file but cannot change the configured one, as any user can by default beside a file an administrator keeps under ProgramData, or beside a folder directly under the system drive's root whose permissions the administrator restricted, and who can intercept the connection to the database server or stand in for it, to have hMailServer trust a certificate authority of the attacker's own and read and modify the traffic between hMailServer and its database, the database password included; the file alone, holding no authority that issued the database server's certificate, stops hMailServer from connecting to its database. The same applies in 6.3.4 through 6.3.7 to TlsCaFile when an Oracle MySQL client library has been put in place of the bundled MariaDB Connector/C, since that client opens the file through OpenSSL in the same way; the bundled MariaDB Connector/C opens the file in the code page and is not affected, and neither are the Linux builds. The configuration is not the default: by default no root certificate file is named.

Technical severity7.5 highCVSS 3.1 · CNA: GitLab
Published2026-11-11Source updated 2026-11-11
Collected2026-11-111 attributed source

Fixes and workarounds

Fix

Upgrade to hMailServer 6.3.8, which on Windows refuses before connecting, with HM7534 in the error log, a root certificate file name whose bytes in the code page outside ASCII also read as UTF-8, for PostgreSQLSslRootCert and TlsCaFile alike and whichever database client is loaded, and hands an Oracle MySQL client the name in UTF-8, which names the same file. Until then, name the root certificate file by a path in ASCII alone, which reads as the same name in the code page and in UTF-8 and which every affected version hands over unchanged; where a name outside ASCII must stay, make sure no one else can create the file or folder that the name's UTF-8 reading names.

Source: CNA: GitLab

Affected products and versions

Affected products, source version ranges and reporting authorities
ProductVersionsAuthority
hMailServer
Progressive Robot Ltd
≥ 6.2.25; ≤ 6.3.7 (affected, semver)
Other versions: unaffected
CNA: GitLab

Version ranges are source assertions. Check the vendor advisory and your installed configuration before determining exposure.

CVSS assessments

CVSS scores, vectors and reporting authorities
Version / scoreVectorAuthority
3.1 / 7.5
high
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HCNA: GitLab

Exploit evidence

No exploit evidence in collected sources. This is not proof of no exploitation.

References

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