CVE-2023-32980 in Email Extension Plugin
Summary
by MITRE • 05/16/2023
A cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in Jenkins Email Extension Plugin 2.96 and earlier allows attackers to make another user stop watching an attacker-specified job.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 04/26/2025
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2023-32980 represents a critical cross-site request forgery weakness within the Jenkins Email Extension Plugin version 2.96 and earlier. This flaw resides in the plugin's handling of user requests and lacks proper validation mechanisms to verify the authenticity of incoming requests. The vulnerability specifically affects the job watching functionality, where authenticated users can be coerced into performing unintended actions without their knowledge or consent. The attack vector exploits the trust relationship between the victim user and the Jenkins instance, allowing malicious actors to manipulate the system's behavior through crafted requests.
The technical implementation of this CSRF vulnerability stems from insufficient anti-CSRF token validation within the plugin's web interface components. When users interact with the email extension plugin to manage job notifications, the system fails to properly validate the origin of requests or verify that they originate from legitimate user interactions. This weakness enables attackers to construct malicious web pages or send specially crafted requests that, when executed by an authenticated user, trigger the unwanted job watching behavior. The vulnerability operates at the application layer and requires minimal privileges to exploit, as it leverages existing authenticated sessions to perform unauthorized actions.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple inconvenience, as it can compromise the integrity of Jenkins monitoring systems and potentially expose sensitive information. Attackers can manipulate job watching configurations to either suppress notifications for critical jobs or redirect attention away from important system events. This manipulation could lead to delayed responses to system failures, security incidents, or important build statuses. The vulnerability particularly affects organizations that rely heavily on Jenkins for continuous integration and deployment processes, where job monitoring is crucial for maintaining system health and security posture. The affected scope includes any Jenkins instance running the vulnerable plugin version, making it a widespread concern across various deployment environments.
Organizations should immediately upgrade to Jenkins Email Extension Plugin version 2.97 or later to remediate this vulnerability, as no effective workarounds exist for the current implementation. The fix addresses the missing CSRF token validation by implementing proper request origin verification and session management controls. Security teams should conduct comprehensive audits of their Jenkins environments to identify all instances of the vulnerable plugin and ensure timely updates are deployed. Additionally, implementing network-level protections such as web application firewalls and monitoring for suspicious request patterns can provide additional defense-in-depth measures. This vulnerability aligns with CWE-352, which specifically addresses cross-site request forgery flaws, and maps to ATT&CK technique T1566.001 for credential harvesting through social engineering and malicious web content. The risk assessment should include consideration of potential cascading effects on automated build processes and notification systems that depend on accurate job watching configurations.