net-imap vulnerable to command Injection via unvalidated Symbol inputs
Date: 2026-05
Affected: rubygems/net-imap, rubygems/net-imap, rubygems/net-imap
Attack vector: deserialization
Category: vulnerability-disclosure
Severity: Medium
CVE: CVE-2026-42258
CWE: CWE-77
CWE-93

### Summary Symbol arguments to commands are vulnerable to a CRLF Injection / IMAP Command injection via Symbol arguments passed to IMAP commands. ### Details Symbol arguments represent IMAP "system flags", which are formatted as "atoms" (with no quoting) with a `"\"` prefix. Vulnerable versions of Net::IMAP sends the symbol name directly to the socket, with no validation. Because the Symbol input is unvalidated, it could contain invalid `flag` characters, including `SP` and `CRLF`, which could be used to finish the current command and inject new commands. Although IMAP `flag` arguments are only valid input for a few IMAP commands, most Net::IMAP commands use generic argument handling, and will allow Symbol (`flag`) inputs. Note also that the list of valid symbol inputs should be restricted to an enumerated set of standard RFC defined flag types, which have each been given specific defined semantics. Any user-provided values outside of that list of standard "system flags" needs to use the IMAP `keyword` syntax, which are sent as atoms, i.e: string inputs. Under no circumstances should `#to_sym` ever be called on unvetted user-provided input: that will always be a bug in the calling code for the simple reason that `user_input_atom` is as `\user_input_atom`. For forward compatibility with future IMAP extentions, Net::IMAP, does not restrict flag inputs to an enumerated list. That is the responsibility of the calling application code, which knows which flag semantics


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Architectural layers (MAESTRO):