CVE-2020-12398 — If Thunderbird is configured to use STARTTLS for an IMAP server, and the server

If Thunderbird is configured to use STARTTLS for an IMAP server, and the server sends a PREAUTH response, then Thunderbird will continue with an unencrypted connection, causing email data to be sent without protection. This vulnerability affects Thunderbird < 68.9.0.

01What is this vulnerability?

If Thunderbird is configured to use STARTTLS for an IMAP server, and the server sends a PREAUTH response, then Thunderbird will continue with an unencrypted connection, causing email data to be sent without protection. This vulnerability affects Thunderbird < 68.9.0.

02Affected products

Vendor	Product	Versions
Mozilla	Thunderbird	unspecified

03Active exploitation status

Not currently listed on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. EPSS is the best forward-looking signal — see the EPSS row above.

04Recommended remediation

• Patch to a fixed version listed in the vendor advisory (see references below).
• Mitigate with WAF rules, network egress filters, or feature flags where the patch is not yet available.
• Hunt historical logs for exploitation indicators — see Detection signatures below.

05Technical details

For the full vendor write-up, exploit chains, and reference implementations, see the references list in section 09.

06Detection signatures

Ask SARA in chat to draft a starting detection for this CVE in your stack of choice.

07Related CVEs

No directly-cited follow-up CVEs in the KB record for this advisory. The references list in section 09 carries the vendor cross-references.

08Timeline

• Published: 2020-07-09T14:45:35.000Z
• Last modified: 2024-08-04T11:56:52.019Z

09References

• www.mozilla.org — https://www.mozilla.org/security/advisories/mfsa2020-22/
• bugzilla.mozilla.org — https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1613623
• usn.ubuntu.com — https://usn.ubuntu.com/4421-1/