Vulnerability · Published Aug 28, 2026 · Assigned by OX

CVE-2026-73208

High 7.4

In plain English

A high-severity improper authentication in OX Dovecot CE from Open-Xchange GmbH. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.3% (higher than 24% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.

Severity (CVSS 3.1)7.4High
Exploit odds (30 days)0.3%top 75.8% of all CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo reportsCISA SSVC: none
Attack toolingNoneno public tooling known

Official description

An attacker that holds a token intended for a different purpose can authenticate, because when an OAuth2 token response does not contain a scope claim, the audience claim is used in its place and checked against the configured required scopes. These are different concepts, and the audience claim does not describe what a token is allowed to do. A token that grants no relevant permissions can be accepted because its intended recipient value happens to match a configured scope name, granting access that should have been denied. It also hides an identity provider misconfiguration where scopes are not being issued at all. Ensure the identity provider issues a scope claim for all tokens used with Dovecot, and that configured scope names do not match audience values. Update to non-vulnerable version. No publicly available exploits are known.

Affected packages & fixed versions

EcosystemPackageFixed inAdvisory
AlmaLinux:10dovecot1:2.3.21-19.el10_2.8ALSA-2026:79371
AlmaLinux:8dovecot1:2.3.16-16.el8_10ALSA-2026:76763
AlmaLinux:9dovecot1:2.3.16-18.el9_8.8ALSA-2026:80825
AlmaLinux:10dovecot-devel1:2.3.21-19.el10_2.8ALSA-2026:79371
AlmaLinux:8dovecot-devel1:2.3.16-16.el8_10ALSA-2026:76763
AlmaLinux:9dovecot-devel1:2.3.16-18.el9_8.8ALSA-2026:80825
AlmaLinux:10dovecot-mysql1:2.3.21-19.el10_2.8ALSA-2026:79371
AlmaLinux:8dovecot-mysql1:2.3.16-16.el8_10ALSA-2026:76763
AlmaLinux:9dovecot-mysql1:2.3.16-18.el9_8.8ALSA-2026:80825
AlmaLinux:10dovecot-pgsql1:2.3.21-19.el10_2.8ALSA-2026:79371
AlmaLinux:8dovecot-pgsql1:2.3.16-16.el8_10ALSA-2026:76763
AlmaLinux:9dovecot-pgsql1:2.3.16-18.el9_8.8ALSA-2026:80825
AlmaLinux:10dovecot-pigeonhole1:2.3.21-19.el10_2.8ALSA-2026:79371
AlmaLinux:8dovecot-pigeonhole1:2.3.16-16.el8_10ALSA-2026:76763
AlmaLinux:9dovecot-pigeonhole1:2.3.16-18.el9_8.8ALSA-2026:80825
Alpine:v3.23dovecot2.4.5-r0ALPINE-CVE-2026-73208
Alpine:v3.24dovecot2.4.5-r0ALPINE-CVE-2026-73208
Debian:12dovecot1:2.3.19.1+dfsg1-2.1+deb12u7DEBIAN-CVE-2026-73208
Debian:13dovecot1:2.4.1+dfsg1-6+deb13u7DEBIAN-CVE-2026-73208
Debian:14dovecot1:2.4.5+dfsg1-1DEBIAN-CVE-2026-73208
Rocky Linux:10dovecot1:2.3.21-19.el10_2.8RLSA-2026:79371
Rocky Linux:8dovecot1:2.3.16-16.el8_10RLSA-2026:76763
Rocky Linux:9dovecot1:2.3.16-18.el9_8.8RLSA-2026:80825
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSdovecotno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2026-73208
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSdovecotno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2026-73208
Ubuntu:26.04:LTSdovecotno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2026-73208

Affected products (as reported)

VendorProductVersions
Open-Xchange GmbH OX Dovecot Pro 2.3.13 – before 2.3.22.23.0.0 – before 3.0.73.1.0 – before 3.1.6
Open-Xchange GmbH OX Dovecot CE 2.3.13 – before 2.4.5

Weakness: CWE-287 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N

References