The ACL plugin in Dovecot before 1.1.4 treats negative access rights as if they are positive access rights, which allows attackers to bypass intended access restrictions.
This vulnerability carries a HIGH severity rating with a CVSS v3.1 score of 7.5, indicating it can be exploited remotely over the network with relatively low complexity without requiring user interaction and does not require pre-existing privileges . The vulnerability impacts confidentiality (data exposure), for affected systems. Impacting 4 products from dovecot, from fedoraproject, from opensuse and 1 other, organizations running these solutions should prioritize assessment and patching.
Originally identified in 2008, this vulnerability predates many modern security frameworks and practices. The vulnerability landscape of that era was characterized by different threat models and less mature defense mechanisms compared to contemporary standards.
2008-10-15T20:08:02.670
2026-04-23T00:35:47.467
Modified
CVSSv3.1: 7.5 (HIGH)
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:N
10.0
4.9
| Type | Vendor | Product | Version/Range | Vulnerable? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Application | dovecot | dovecot | < 1.1.4 | Yes |
| Operating System | fedoraproject | fedora | 8 | Yes |
| Operating System | fedoraproject | fedora | 9 | Yes |
| Operating System | opensuse | opensuse | 10.3-11.1 | Yes |
| Operating System | canonical | ubuntu_linux | 8.04 | Yes |
| Operating System | canonical | ubuntu_linux | 8.10 | Yes |
| Operating System | canonical | ubuntu_linux | 9.04 | Yes |
SecUtils normalizes and enriches National Vulnerability Database (NVD) records by standardizing vendor and product identifiers, aggregating vulnerability metadata from both NVD and MITRE sources, and providing structured context for security teams. For dovecot's affected products, we extract Common Platform Enumeration (CPE) data, Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) classifications, CVSS severity metrics, and reference data to enable rapid vulnerability prioritization and asset correlation. This record contains no exploit code, proof-of-concept instructions, or attack methodologies—only defensive intelligence necessary for patch management, risk assessment, and security operations.