CVE-2026-114472

Insufficient Resource Pool in hMailServer

Published Oct 21, 2026 CVSS 3.1 · 3.7 Low EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed
Description
Insufficient resource pool in the ACME HTTP-01 challenge responder of Progressive Robot hMailServer 6.0.0 through 6.3.6 allows a remote unauthenticated attacker to cause a certificate issuance or renewal to fail. When the server obtains or renews a TLS certificate over ACME it runs an HTTP-01 challenge responder on port 80 for the certificate authority to read the challenge token; the responder served one connection at a time, accepting a socket, waiting up to five seconds to receive a request, answering it, and only then accepting the next. A client that connected and sent nothing held the single worker for the whole timeout, so enough idle connections during a validation keep the certificate authority's own request from being answered in time and the validation fails. Sustained across a certificate's renewals this leads to the certificate expiring, after which clients refuse the server's TLS; the mail service itself continues on its current certificate until then. No authentication is required to connect to the responder. Version 6.3.7 serves up to 64 connections at once and closes a connection past that, so that where a handful of idle connections, one after another, sufficed before, a client must keep 64 idle connections open at once throughout a validation to have the certificate authority's connection closed.

Remediation

Vendor Solution

Upgrade to hMailServer 6.3.7, whose ACME challenge responder serves each accepted connection on its own short-lived handler, up to 64 at once, instead of one at a time, so that one idle connection no longer holds up the others; it closes a connection past those 64, so that a client that keeps 64 idle connections open throughout a validation still has the certificate authority's connection closed. Until then, and with 6.3.7 where that remaining case matters, where ACME is in use, restrict who may reach the challenge port during a renewal if the surrounding network allows it, or obtain certificates with an external ACME client (for example a DNS-01 client) so that this responder does not run, and monitor certificate expiry so that a starved renewal is noticed before the certificate lapses.

Tracking

Sign in to view the affected projects.

Advisories

No advisories available
History
Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'no', 'Exploitation': 'none', 'Technical Impact': 'partial'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}

Type Values Removed Values Added
First Time appeared Progressive Robot
Progressive Robot hmailserver
Vendors & Products Progressive Robot
Progressive Robot hmailserver
Type Values Removed Values Added
Description Insufficient resource pool in the ACME HTTP-01 challenge responder of Progressive Robot hMailServer 6.0.0 through 6.3.6 allows a remote unauthenticated attacker to cause a certificate issuance or renewal to fail. When the server obtains or renews a TLS certificate over ACME it runs an HTTP-01 challenge responder on port 80 for the certificate authority to read the challenge token; the responder served one connection at a time, accepting a socket, waiting up to five seconds to receive a request, answering it, and only then accepting the next. A client that connected and sent nothing held the single worker for the whole timeout, so enough idle connections during a validation keep the certificate authority's own request from being answered in time and the validation fails. Sustained across a certificate's renewals this leads to the certificate expiring, after which clients refuse the server's TLS; the mail service itself continues on its current certificate until then. No authentication is required to connect to the responder. Version 6.3.7 serves up to 64 connections at once and closes a connection past that, so that where a handful of idle connections, one after another, sufficed before, a client must keep 64 idle connections open at once throughout a validation to have the certificate authority's connection closed.
Title Insufficient Resource Pool in hMailServer
Weaknesses CWE-410
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 3.7, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L'}

Weaknesses

Sources

Status
PUBLISHED
Assigner
GitLab
Published
Updated
Oct 29, 2026, 8:56 PM
Reserved
Oct 21, 2026, 3:11 PM
Status
Awaiting Analysis
Published
Oct 21, 2026, 4:17 PM
Modified
Oct 29, 2026, 9:17 PM