Recently, a critical vulnerability (CVE-2025-25064) has been discovered in Zimbra Collaboration, a popular open-source email and collaboration suite. This vulnerability specifically affects the versions 10..x before 10..12 and 10.1.x before 10.1.4, and it lies within the ZimbraSync Service SOAP endpoint. Zimbra Collaboration is widely used by many organizations and businesses to handle their email, calendaring, and collaboration needs. So, let's dive into the details of this vulnerability and understand how it could lead to a potential security breach.

What's the vulnerability?

This vulnerability allows potential attackers to perform an SQL injection attack on vulnerable installations of Zimbra Collaboration. The root cause of this flaw is the insufficient sanitization of user-supplied parameters when processed by the ZimbraSync Service SOAP endpoint.

By exploiting this vulnerability, authenticated attackers can manipulate specific parameters in the request to inject arbitrary SQL queries. This could ultimately allow them to access and retrieve email metadata, potentially exposing critical information.

To better understand the issue, let's take a look at an example of a vulnerable code snippet

def get_email_message_ids(userid, folderid):
    query = f'SELECT message_id FROM email_messages WHERE user_id = {userid} AND folder_id = {folderid};'
    cursor.execute(query)
    result = cursor.fetchall()
    return result

In this example, userid and folderid are user-supplied parameters that are directly being used in the SQL query without any proper sanitation. An attacker could easily manipulate these parameters to inject arbitrary SQL queries that would allow them to access sensitive email metadata.

For instance, an attacker might change the folderid parameter to 1 OR 1=1 and userid to 1. This could result in the following SQL query execution:

SELECT message_id FROM email_messages WHERE user_id = 1 AND folder_id = 1 OR 1=1;

This query would return all message_id values in the table, effectively bypassing the security controls in place.

Solution

To address this vulnerability, it is crucial to update the affected Zimbra Collaboration software to the latest versions – 10..12 or 10.1.4 – which contain the required security patches.

As a general best practice, it is recommended to use parameterized queries or prepared statements to prevent SQL injection attacks. By doing this, you ensure that user-supplied data is properly sanitized and separated from the query itself, lowering the risks of a successful SQL injection attack.

For more information on CVE-2025-25064, please refer to the following resources

1. Zimbra Collaboration Security Advisory
2. CVE Details: CVE-2025-25064
3. National Vulnerability Database: CVE-2025-25064

Conclusion

The discovery of this SQL injection vulnerability in Zimbra Collaboration's ZimbraSync Service SOAP endpoint underscores the importance of proper input sanitation. Organizations using affected versions should take immediate action to apply the appropriate security patches to mitigate the risks associated with this flaw. Additionally, developers should be mindful of secure coding practices, such as using parameterized queries and prepared statements, to prevent similar vulnerabilities from emerging in the future.

Timeline

Published on: 02/03/2025 20:15:37 UTC
Last modified on: 03/14/2025 18:15:31 UTC