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security: reject CRLF/NUL in email headers to prevent SMTP injection (fixes H-3)
H-3 in certctl-audit-report.md: caller-supplied From/To/Subject were
interpolated directly into the SMTP DATA payload and handed to
client.Mail / client.Rcpt with no sanitization, allowing an attacker
who controls any of those values to inject extra headers (Bcc:,
Reply-To:), split the message body (CRLFCRLF), or tamper with the
SMTP envelope. CWE-113.
Fix:
- New package helper internal/validation.ValidateHeaderValue(field,
value). Rejects CR ("\r"), LF ("\n"), and NUL ("\x00") with an error
that names the offending field but does NOT echo the raw value,
so log readers cannot be attacked with injected content. Silent
stripping was considered and rejected: authentication-relevant
headers must fail visibly.
- Two-layer defense in internal/connector/notifier/email/email.go:
(1) primary guard at the top of sendEmail / sendHTMLEmail, which
blocks tampering of the SMTP envelope (client.Mail, client.Rcpt)
since net/smtp does not sanitize those arguments; and
(2) defense-in-depth guard inside formatEmailMessage /
formatHTMLEmailMessage, catching any future caller that
bypasses sendEmail. Both format functions now return an error.
- Body content is intentionally NOT validated — CR/LF in body is legal
RFC 5322 content and net/smtp handles dot-stuffing.
Tests:
- internal/validation/headers_test.go: 3 functions (AcceptsSafeInput,
RejectsControlCharacters, DefaultFieldName) covering plain ASCII,
UTF-8 multibyte, tabs, typical email addresses, CRLF injection,
lone CR, lone LF, NUL, CRLFCRLF body split, trailing CR, leading LF.
Each reject case asserts the field name IS in the error and the
raw offending value IS NOT (anti-log-injection).
- internal/connector/notifier/email/email_test.go: added
TestEmail_FormatEmailMessage_RejectsCRLFInjection and
TestEmail_FormatHTMLEmailMessage_RejectsCRLFInjection. Existing
format tests updated for the new (bytes, error) signature.
Wire-format invariants preserved:
- SMTP DATA headers still use CRLF separators and RFC 1123Z Date
(unchanged).
- Content-Type headers unchanged (text/plain for plain, text/html +
MIME-Version: 1.0 for HTML).
- No change to message encoding or transport.
Verification (Go 1.25.9 linux-arm64, parent e9947dc):
- go build ./... clean
- go vet ./... clean
- go test -race ./internal/validation/... ok
- go test -race ./internal/connector/notifier/email/... ok
- go test -race ./internal/connector/notifier/webhook/... ok
- Per-layer coverage gates all pass:
validation 95.1% (+0.7 vs baseline 94.4%)
email 39.7% (+1.4 vs baseline 38.3%)
service 67.8% (unchanged)
handler 78.6% (unchanged)
middleware 80.0% (unchanged)
domain 92.7% (unchanged)
- govulncheck ./... No vulnerabilities found
- golangci-lint run ./internal/validation/... ./internal/connector/notifier/email/...
0 issues
Operational note: SMTP sends that would previously deliver a
tampered message now fail fast at the notifier with a clear error.
Operators who were relying on header-injection-shaped inputs (there
should be none in practice — all callers are internal certctl code)
will see "failed to format message: <field> contains disallowed
control character" in logs.
Scope: H-3 only. H-4 (webhook SSRF) follows in a separate commit.
This commit is contained in:
@@ -138,7 +138,10 @@ func TestEmail_FormatMessage_RFC822Headers(t *testing.T) {
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subject := "Test Subject"
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body := "Test Body"
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message := conn.formatEmailMessage(from, to, subject, body)
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message, err := conn.formatEmailMessage(from, to, subject, body)
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if err != nil {
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t.Fatalf("expected nil error, got %v", err)
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}
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messageStr := string(message)
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if !strings.Contains(messageStr, "From: "+from) {
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@@ -177,7 +180,10 @@ func TestEmail_FormatHTMLEmailMessage_Headers(t *testing.T) {
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subject := "HTML Test"
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htmlBody := "<html><body><h1>Test</h1></body></html>"
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message := conn.formatHTMLEmailMessage(from, to, subject, htmlBody)
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message, err := conn.formatHTMLEmailMessage(from, to, subject, htmlBody)
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if err != nil {
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t.Fatalf("expected nil error, got %v", err)
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}
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messageStr := string(message)
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if !strings.Contains(messageStr, "From: "+from) {
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@@ -200,6 +206,67 @@ func TestEmail_FormatHTMLEmailMessage_Headers(t *testing.T) {
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}
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}
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// TestEmail_FormatEmailMessage_RejectsCRLFInjection exercises the CRLF
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// sanitizer (CWE-113). A subject containing "\r\nBcc: ..." must be rejected
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// rather than silently stripped — authentication-relevant headers are
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// security-critical and silent mutation masks malicious intent.
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func TestEmail_FormatEmailMessage_RejectsCRLFInjection(t *testing.T) {
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cfg := &Config{
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SMTPHost: "smtp.example.com",
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SMTPPort: 587,
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FromAddress: "sender@example.com",
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}
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logger := newTestLogger()
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conn := New(cfg, logger)
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cases := []struct {
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name string
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from, to, sub string
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wantField string
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}{
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{"CRLF in Subject", "sender@example.com", "recipient@example.com", "hello\r\nBcc: attacker@example.com", "Subject"},
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{"LF in To", "sender@example.com", "recipient@example.com\nBcc: x@y", "ok", "To"},
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{"CR in From", "sender@example.com\rExtra: header", "recipient@example.com", "ok", "From"},
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{"NUL in Subject", "sender@example.com", "recipient@example.com", "hi\x00there", "Subject"},
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}
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for _, tc := range cases {
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t.Run(tc.name, func(t *testing.T) {
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_, err := conn.formatEmailMessage(tc.from, tc.to, tc.sub, "body")
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if err == nil {
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t.Fatal("expected injection error, got nil")
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}
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if !strings.Contains(err.Error(), tc.wantField) {
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t.Errorf("expected error to mention field %q, got %q", tc.wantField, err.Error())
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}
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})
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}
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}
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// TestEmail_FormatHTMLEmailMessage_RejectsCRLFInjection mirrors the plain-text
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// test for the HTML codepath used by the digest service.
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func TestEmail_FormatHTMLEmailMessage_RejectsCRLFInjection(t *testing.T) {
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cfg := &Config{
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SMTPHost: "smtp.example.com",
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SMTPPort: 587,
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FromAddress: "sender@example.com",
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}
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logger := newTestLogger()
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conn := New(cfg, logger)
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_, err := conn.formatHTMLEmailMessage(
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"sender@example.com",
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"recipient@example.com",
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"digest\r\nBcc: attacker@example.com",
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"<p>hi</p>",
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)
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if err == nil {
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t.Fatal("expected CRLF injection error, got nil")
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}
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if !strings.Contains(err.Error(), "Subject") {
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t.Errorf("expected error to mention Subject field, got %q", err.Error())
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}
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}
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func TestEmail_FormatAlertBody(t *testing.T) {
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cfg := &Config{
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SMTPHost: "smtp.example.com",
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