CVE-2025-14874: Nodemailer addressparser denial of service via recursive calls

CVE-2025-14874 · Severity: high · CVSS 7.5 · Published 2025-12-18

Nodemailer, a popular library for sending emails in Node.js applications, is vulnerable to a denial-of-service attack. By sending a specially crafted email header with many nested groups (using colons), an attacker can cause the application to crash immediately. This can lead to service outages and, in some environments, trigger a continuous loop of restarts that exhausts server resources.

Technologies: Nodemailer, Redhat Advanced Cluster Management For Kubernetes. Vendors: Maven, Nodemailer, Redhat.

Quick answers

Is CVE-2025-14874 exploited in the wild?
No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2025-14874 being exploited in the wild.
How severe is CVE-2025-14874?
High severity, with a CVSS score of 7.5, published 18 December 2025.
Which products and versions are affected?
org.webjars.npm:nodemailer (Maven) >= 3.0.0, <= 6.10.1, ECOSYSTEM:introduced=3.0.0,last_affected=6.10.1; Nodemailer >= 3.0.0, <= 7.0.10.
Is there a fix for CVE-2025-14874?
No fixed version is recorded yet. Check the vendor's advisory in the references below. If you run it, Junglewise drafts a mitigation that fits your setup and applies it once you approve, with senior security engineers behind it.
How is CVE-2025-14874 attacked?
It is attacked over the network, in a software library.
Am I affected by CVE-2025-14874?
Check whether you run org.webjars.npm:nodemailer (Maven), Nodemailer, Redhat Advanced Cluster Management For Kubernetes or one of the others listed at an affected version. Junglewise does that check for you around the clock: connect your code, cloud and domains, and it matches new vulnerabilities like this one against what you actually run and tells you when one reaches you.

Technical details

A Denial of Service (DoS) vulnerability exists in Nodemailer's addressparser component due to improper handling of nested group structures as defined in RFC 5322. The parser attempts to flatten nested groups by recursively calling itself without an enforced depth limit. An attacker can provide a malicious email header containing a large number of colons (e.g., 'g0: g1: ... gN: victim@example.com;'), triggering infinite recursion that leads to a 'Maximum call stack size exceeded' error and immediate process termination. This is reachable via the network without authentication. The issue is fixed in version 7.0.11.

Affected products

  • nodemailer nodemailer >= 3.0.0, <= 7.0.10
  • org.webjars.npm nodemailer >= 3.0.0, <= 6.10.1

Identifiers

  • CVE-2025-14874
  • GHSA-rcmh-qjqh-p98v

Timeline

  • 2025-11-27: disclosed: Initial disclosure and patch release
  • 2025-12-01: advisory: GitHub Advisory published

References

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