Skip to main content

USN-7731-1: KMail vulnerabilities

Damian Poddebniak, Christian Dresen, Jens Müller, Fabian Ising, Sebastian Schinzel, Simon Friedberger, Juraj Somorovsky, and Jörg Schwenk discovered that KMail could be made to leak the plaintext of S/MIME encrypted emails when retrieving external content in emails. Under certain configurations, if a user were tricked into opening a specially crafted email, an attacker could possibly use this issue to obtain the plaintext of an encrypted email. This update mitigates the issue by preventing KMail from automatically loading external content. This issue only affected Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. (CVE-2017-17689) It was discovered that KMail could be made to attach files to an email without the user's knowledge. If a user were tricked into sending an email created by a specially crafted "mailto" link, an attacker could possibly use this issue to obtain sensitive files. (CVE-2020-11880)

About

Kenya Education Network CERT(KENET-CERT) is a Cybersecurity Emergency Response Team and Co-ordination Center operated by the National Research and Education Network of Kenya. KENET-CERT coordination center promotes awareness on cybersecurity incidences as well as coordinates and assists member institutions in responding effectively to cyber security threats and incidences. KENET-CERT works closely with Kenya's National CIRT coordination center (CIRT/CC) as a sector CIRT for the academic institutions. KENET promotes use of ICT in Teaching, Learning and Research in Higher Education Institutions in Kenya. KENET aims to interconnect all the Universities, Tertiary and Research Institutions in Kenya by setting up a cost effective and sustainable private network with high speed access to the global Internet. KENET also facilitates electronic communication among students and faculties in member institutions, share learning and teaching resources by collaboration in Research and Development of Educational content.