CVE-2026-41319

MailKit has STARTTLS Response Injection via unflushed stream buffer that enables SASL mechanism downgrade

Published Apr 24, 2026 CVSS 3.1 · 6.5 Medium EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed
Description
MailKit is a cross-platform mail client library built on top of MimeKit. A STARTTLS Response Injection vulnerability in versions prior to 4.16.0 allows a Man-in-the-Middle attacker to inject arbitrary protocol responses across the plaintext-to-TLS trust boundary, enabling SASL authentication mechanism downgrade (e.g., forcing PLAIN instead of SCRAM-SHA-256). The internal read buffer in `SmtpStream`, `ImapStream`, and `Pop3Stream` is not flushed when the underlying stream is replaced with `SslStream` during STARTTLS upgrade, causing pre-TLS attacker-injected data to be processed as trusted post-TLS responses. Version 4.16.0 patches the issue.

Remediation

No solution or workaround provided in the CVE record

Tracking

Sign in to view the affected projects.

Advisories

Source ID Title
Github GHSA Github GHSA GHSA-9j88-vvj5-vhgr MailKit has STARTTLS Response Injection via unflushed stream buffer that enables SASL mechanism downgrade
History
Type Values Removed Values Added
CPEs cpe:2.3:a:mimekit:mailkit:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* cpe:2.3:a:jstedfast:mailkit:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Vendors & Products Mimekit
Mimekit mailkit
Type Values Removed Values Added
First Time appeared Mimekit
Mimekit mailkit
CPEs cpe:2.3:a:mimekit:mailkit:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Vendors & Products Mimekit
Mimekit mailkit
Type Values Removed Values Added
First Time appeared Jstedfast
Jstedfast mailkit
Vendors & Products Jstedfast
Jstedfast mailkit
Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'no', 'Exploitation': 'poc', 'Technical Impact': 'partial'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description MailKit is a cross-platform mail client library built on top of MimeKit. A STARTTLS Response Injection vulnerability in versions prior to 4.16.0 allows a Man-in-the-Middle attacker to inject arbitrary protocol responses across the plaintext-to-TLS trust boundary, enabling SASL authentication mechanism downgrade (e.g., forcing PLAIN instead of SCRAM-SHA-256). The internal read buffer in `SmtpStream`, `ImapStream`, and `Pop3Stream` is not flushed when the underlying stream is replaced with `SslStream` during STARTTLS upgrade, causing pre-TLS attacker-injected data to be processed as trusted post-TLS responses. Version 4.16.0 patches the issue.
Title MailKit has STARTTLS Response Injection via unflushed stream buffer that enables SASL mechanism downgrade
Weaknesses CWE-74
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 6.5, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N'}

Weaknesses

Sources

Status
PUBLISHED
Assigner
GitHub_M
Published
Updated
Apr 25, 2026, 1:46 AM
Reserved
Apr 20, 2026, 2:01 PM
Status
Analyzed
Published
Apr 24, 2026, 4:16 AM
Modified
Oct 26, 2026, 10:10 PM