FedoraOperating system · Fedoraproject
CVE-2018-18898
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedThe email-ingestion feature in Best Practical Request Tracker 4.1.13 through 4.4 allows denial of service by remote attackers via an algorithmic complexity attack on email address parsing.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · moderate confidenceThe email-ingestion feature in Best Practical Request Tracker versions 4.1.13 through 4.4 contains an algorithmic complexity vulnerability in its email address parsing logic. Remote attackers can exploit this by sending specially crafted email addresses that cause excessive CPU consumption, leading to denial of service.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data
FedoraOperating system
= 28= 29
Ubuntu LinuxOperating system
= 16.04= 18.04
Debian LinuxOperating system
= 8.0= 10.0>= 4.1.13, <= 4.4.0CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify Request Tracker versionRun the command to display the installed RT version, such as 'rt --version' or check the version file in the RT installation directoryAffected if The installed version is 4.1.13 through 4.4.0 inclusive
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Confirm email ingestion is enabledCheck RT configuration for Scrips or templates that process incoming email, typically found in the RT_SiteConfig.pm file or the etc/ directory of the RT installationAffected if Email ingestion processing (incoming email handling via RT::Action::Notify or similar) is configured and active
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Verify RT email reception is activeInspect whether RT is configured to receive email via pipe, alias, or integration with a mail transfer agent by examining the RT mail configuration filesAffected if RT is actively receiving or configured to receive email from untrusted sources on open network interfaces
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Monitor for signs of algorithmic complexity exploitationObserve RT worker processes for abnormal CPU consumption, particularly when processing incoming email addresses in queue submissionsAffected if RT processes exhibit unexpectedly high CPU usage correlating with incoming email processing
You are affected if RT version 4.1.13 through 4.4.0 is installed AND the email ingestion feature is enabled and processing external email.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataUpgrade to a version beyond 4.4 that includes the fix, or implement rate limiting on the email ingestion endpoint as a temporary mitigation until patching can be completed.
Fix this in Fedora
Scoped from the published advisory
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation4.0 h
- Testing3.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $2,800.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2018-18898 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2018-18898 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.
- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
- No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data