Dovecot 1.1 before 2.2.13 and dovecot-ee before 2.1.7.7 and 2.2.x before 2.2.12.12 does not properly close old connections, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (resource consumption) via an incomplete SSL/TLS handshake for an IMAP/POP3 connection.

Updated dovecot packages fix security vulnerability.

Dovecot before 2.2.13 is vulnerable to a DoS attack against imap/pop3-login processes. If SSL/TLS handshake was started but wasn't finished, the login process attempted to eventually forcibly disconnect the client, but failed to do it correctly. This could have left the connections hanging around for a long time (CVE-2014-3430).

The remote host is affected by the vulnerability described in GLSA-201412-03 (Dovecot: Denial of Service)

    Dovecot does not properly close connections, allowing a resource       exhaustion for incomplete SSL/TLS handshakes.
  Impact :

    A remote attacker could possibly cause a Denial of Service condition.
  Workaround :

    There is no known workaround at this time.

It was discovered that Dovecot did not properly discard connections trapped in the SSL/TLS handshake phase. A remote attacker could use this flaw to cause a denial of service on an IMAP/POP3 server by exhausting the pool of available connections and preventing further, legitimate connections to the IMAP/POP3 server to be made.
(CVE-2014-3430)

After installing the updated packages, the dovecot service will be restarted automatically.

Updated dovecot packages that fix one security issue are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 and 7.

The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having Moderate security impact. A Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base score, which gives a detailed severity rating, is available from the CVE link in the References section.

Dovecot is an IMAP server, written with security primarily in mind, for Linux and other UNIX-like systems. It also contains a small POP3 server. It supports mail in both the maildir or mbox format. The SQL drivers and authentication plug-ins are provided as subpackages.

It was discovered that Dovecot did not properly discard connections trapped in the SSL/TLS handshake phase. A remote attacker could use this flaw to cause a denial of service on an IMAP/POP3 server by exhausting the pool of available connections and preventing further, legitimate connections to the IMAP/POP3 server to be made.
(CVE-2014-3430)

All dovecot users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which contain a backported patch to correct this issue. After installing the updated packages, the dovecot service will be restarted automatically.

The remote Oracle Linux 6 / 7 host has packages installed that are affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the ELSA-2014-0790 advisory.

    [1:2.0.9-7.1]
    - fix CVE-2014-3430: denial of service through maxxing out SSL connections (#1108001)

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Oracle Linux security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

- Fixed a DoS attack against imap/pop3-login processes. If     SSL/TLS handshake was started but wasn't finished, the     login process attempted to eventually forcibly     disconnect the client, but failed to do it correctly.
    This could have left the connections hanging arond for a     long time. (Affected Dovecot v1.1+)

  - mdbox: Added mdbox_purge_preserve_alt setting to keep     the file within alt storage during purge.

  - fts: Added support for parsing attachments via Apache     Tika. Enable with: plugin { fts_tika =     http://tikahost:9998/tika/ }

  - virtual plugin: Delay opening backend mailboxes until     it's necessary. This requires mailbox_list_index=yes to     work. (Currently IMAP IDLE command still causes all     backend mailboxes to be opened.)

  - mail_never_cache_fields=* means now to disable all     caching. This may be a useful optimization as     doveadm/dsync parameter for some admin tasks which     shouldn't really update the cache file.

  - IMAP: Return SPECIAL-USE flags always for LSUB command.

  - pop3 server was still crashing in v2.2.12 with some     settings

  - maildir: Various fixes and improvements to handling     compressed mails, especially when they have     broken/missing S=sizes in filenames.

  - fts-lucene, fts-solr: Fixed crash on search when the     index contained duplicate entries.

  - Many fixes and performance improvements to dsync and     replication

  - director was somewhat broken when there were exactly two     directors in the ring. It caused errors about 'weak     users' getting stuck.

  - mail_attachment_dir: Attachments with the last     base64-encoded line longer than the rest wasn't handled     correctly.

  - IMAP: SEARCH/SORT PARTIAL was handled completely wrong     in v2.2.11+

  - acl: Global ACL file handling was broken when multiple     entries matched the mailbox name. (Only the first entry     was used.)

Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Fedora security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.

It was discovered that the Dovecot email server is vulnerable to a denial of service attack against imap/pop3-login processes due to incorrect handling of the closure of inactive SSL/TLS connections.

A vulnerability has been discovered and corrected in dovecot :

Dovecot 1.1 before 2.2.13 and dovecot-ee before 2.1.7.7 and 2.2.x before 2.2.12.12 does not properly close old connections, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (resource consumption) via an incomplete SSL/TLS handshake for an IMAP/POP3 connection (CVE-2014-3430).

The updated packages have been patched to correct this issue.

The remote Ubuntu 14.04 LTS host has packages installed that are affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the USN-2213-1 advisory.

    It was discovered that Dovecot incorrectly handled closing inactive SSL/TLS connections. A remote attacker     could use this issue to cause Dovecot to stop responding to new connections, resulting in a denial of     service.

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Ubuntu security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
82366	Mandriva Linux Security Advisory : dovecot (MDVSA-2015:113)	Nessus	Mandriva Local Security Checks	medium
79813	GLSA-201412-03 : Dovecot: Denial of Service	Nessus	Gentoo Local Security Checks	medium
78329	Amazon Linux AMI : dovecot (ALAS-2014-386)	Nessus	Amazon Linux Local Security Checks	medium
76245	Scientific Linux Security Update : dovecot on SL6.x i386/srpm/x86_64 (20140625)	Nessus	Scientific Linux Local Security Checks	medium
76244	RHEL 6 / 7 : dovecot (RHSA-2014:0790)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	medium
76232	Oracle Linux 6 / 7 : dovecot (ELSA-2014-0790)	Nessus	Oracle Linux Local Security Checks	high
76218	CentOS 6 : dovecot (CESA-2014:0790)	Nessus	CentOS Local Security Checks	medium
76092	Fedora 19 : dovecot-2.2.13-1.fc19 (2014-6331)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	medium
74381	Debian DSA-2954-1 : dovecot - security update	Nessus	Debian Local Security Checks	medium
74077	Mandriva Linux Security Advisory : dovecot (MDVSA-2014:099)	Nessus	Mandriva Local Security Checks	medium
74048	Fedora 20 : dovecot-2.2.13-1.fc20 (2014-6338)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	medium
74034	Ubuntu 14.04 LTS : Dovecot vulnerability (USN-2213-1)	Nessus	Ubuntu Local Security Checks	high

Detections

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CVE-2014-3430

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Tenable Plugins

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