Arch Linux Security Advisory ASA-202011-24

Severity: High
Date : 2020-11-26
CVE-ID : CVE-2020-28896
Package : neomutt
Type : silent downgrade
Remote : Yes
Link : https://security.archlinux.org/AVG-1289

Summary

The package neomutt before version 20201120-1 is vulnerable to silent
downgrade.

Resolution

Upgrade to 20201120-1.

pacman -Syu “neomutt>=20201120-1”

The problem has been fixed upstream in version 20201120.

Workaround

None.

Description

A security issue has been found in Mutt before version 2.0.2 and
NeoMutt before version 20201120 that could result in authentication
credentials being sent over an unencrypted connection, without
$ssl_force_tls being consulted. During connection, if the server
provided an illegal initial response, the application “bailed”, but did
not actually close the connection. The calling code relied on the
connection status to decide to continue with authentication, instead of
checking the “bail” return value.

Impact

An attacker in position of man-in-the-middle might be able to intercept
and alter messages between the e-mail client and the server.

References

http://lists.mutt.org/pipermail/mutt-users/Week-of-Mon-20201116/002134.html
https://mailman.neomutt.org/pipermail/neomutt-users-neomutt.org/2020-November/000929.html
https://gitlab.com/muttmua/mutt/-/commit/04b06aaa3e0cc0022b9b01dbca2863756ebbf59a
https://github.com/neomutt/neomutt/commit/9c36717a3e2af1f2c1b7242035455ec8112b4b06
https://security.archlinux.org/CVE-2020-28896