CVE-2026-102116 in Email Protection Gateway
Summary
by MITRE • 10/01/2026
-A weakness could have allowed an authenticated Kiteworks Email Protection Gateway administrator to write a file outside its intended location and cause the application to execute it, potentially resulting in remote code execution as the underlying service account.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/01/2026
The vulnerability described represents a critical security flaw within the Kiteworks Email Protection Gateway, specifically targeting administrative functions that handle file operations. This issue is classified under CWE-22: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory, commonly known as path traversal or directory traversal. The core technical deficiency lies in the application's failure to adequately sanitize and validate user-supplied input when constructing file paths for write operations. An authenticated administrator can manipulate these inputs to include relative path sequences, such as dot-dot-slash characters, which allow navigation outside of the designated secure directories intended by the system architecture. This lack of strict boundary enforcement enables the attacker to specify arbitrary locations on the underlying operating system's filesystem where files are written or modified.
The operational impact of this flaw is severe due to its potential for remote code execution with elevated privileges. By successfully writing a malicious file, such as a script or executable binary, into a location that is subsequently executed by the application or an associated service, the attacker can achieve arbitrary command execution on the host system. Crucially, because the vulnerability allows interaction at the administrative level and leverages the context of the underlying service account, the resulting code execution occurs with the permissions granted to that specific service account. In many enterprise deployments, these accounts possess significant privileges necessary for application functionality, meaning successful exploitation could lead to full compromise of the server hosting the Kiteworks Email Protection Gateway. This aligns closely with MITRE ATT&CK technique T1059: Command and Scripting Interpreter, where adversaries use system utilities or scripts to execute commands on compromised hosts.
From a defensive perspective, this vulnerability highlights the necessity for rigorous input validation and secure coding practices in administrative interfaces that interact with the file system. Mitigation strategies must include implementing strict allow-lists for permitted characters in filenames and paths, ensuring that all path constructions are resolved to absolute paths before any filesystem operations occur, and verifying that the final resolved path remains within the expected directory boundaries. Additionally, principle of least privilege should be enforced by configuring service accounts with minimal necessary permissions, thereby limiting the potential damage even if an attacker manages to exploit this flaw. Regular security audits and static code analysis focused on CWE-22 patterns are essential for identifying similar weaknesses in other components of the application suite before they can be exploited in production environments.