CVE-2017-15042
An unintended cleartext issue exists in Go before 1.8.4 and 1.9.x before 1.9.1. RFC 4954 requires that, during SMTP, the PLAIN auth scheme…
- 5.9MediumCVSS base score
- 1.3%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 30% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- NonePublic exploitsnone known yet
Description
An unintended cleartext issue exists in Go before 1.8.4 and 1.9.x before 1.9.1. RFC 4954 requires that, during SMTP, the PLAIN auth scheme must only be used on network connections secured with TLS. The original implementation of smtp.PlainAuth in Go 1.0 enforced this requirement, and it was documented to do so. In 2013, upstream issue #5184, this was changed so that the server may decide whether PLAIN is acceptable. The result is that if you set up a man-in-the-middle SMTP server that doesn't advertise STARTTLS and does advertise that PLAIN auth is OK, the smtp.PlainAuth implementation sends the username and password.
Timeline
ID reserved
By mitre
Published
- 7 years later
· 7 years later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| NVDNVD · Modified | 3.0 | Medium5.9 | CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 1.3% · top 30% of all CVEs (10 Nov 2026)
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Medium 5.9.
Affected products
n/a
- affected n/a
References
8
- RHSA-2017:3463 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_refsource_REDHATx_transferred
- RHSA-2018:0878 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_refsource_REDHATx_transferred
- 101197 (opens in a new tab)vdb-entryx_refsource_BIDx_transferred
- https://golang.org/cl/68210 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_CONFIRMx_transferred
- https://golang.org/cl/68023 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_CONFIRMx_transferred
- https://github.com/golang/go/issues/22134 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_CONFIRMx_transferred
- GLSA-201710-23 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_refsource_GENTOOx_transferred
- https://groups.google.com/d/msg/golang-dev/RinSE3EiJBI/kYL7zb07AgAJ (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_CONFIRMx_transferred
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2017-6517 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2017-15042)Record last updated .