Researchers have discovered a dozen vulnerabilities in Trend Micro’s Email Encryption Gateway, including several issues rated critical and high severity. A majority of the flaws have been patched by the vendor.
Core Security revealed this week that its employees found several types of vulnerabilities in the Linux-based email encryption product. The most serious of the security holes can allow a local or remote attacker with access to the targeted system to execute arbitrary commands with root privileges.
Core Security has published an advisory detailing each of the vulnerabilities it has found. The flaws have been assigned the CVE identifiers CVE-2018-6219 through CVE-2018-6230.
The most serious of the flaws, rated critical based on its CVSS score, is CVE-2018-6223, an issue related to missing authentication. System admins can configure the virtual appliance running Email Encryption Gateway during the deployment process through a registration endpoint. The problem is that this endpoint can be accessed without authentication, allowing attackers to set administrator usernames and passwords and make other configuration changes.
Six of the flaws found in Email Encryption Gateway have been rated “high severity,” including an arbitrary file write issue that can lead to command execution, a couple of cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities, a command execution flaw related to arbitrary log file locations, and the lack of a validation mechanism for software updates.
Other flaws identified by Core Security researchers include SQL and XML external entity (XXE) injections.
Trend Micro informed customers that the vulnerabilities impact Email Encryption Gateway 5.5 build 1111 and earlier running on a virtual appliance. Patches for ten of the flaws are included in version 5.5 build 1129. It’s worth pointing out that it took the vendor more than half a year to release fixes.
A medium severity CSRF issue and a low severity SQL injection vulnerability have not been patched “due to the difficulties of implementing and the negative impact on critical normal product function of the proposed resolutions.” However, Trend Micro did provide some mitigations.
The company also pointed out that the Email Encryption Gateway will reach end of life (EOL) soon and advised customers to migrate to the InterScan Messaging Security product, which provides similar features and functionality.
This was not the first time Core Security researchers discovered vulnerabilities in a Trend Micro product. Back in December, the company disclosed the details of five security holes found in Trend Micro’s Smart Protection Server product.
Related: Flaws Patched in Trend Micro Mobile Security for Enterprise
Related: Symantec Patches Code Execution Flaw in Email Security Product

Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a contributing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.
More from Eduard Kovacs
- In Other News: AI Regulation, Layoffs, US Aerospace Attacks, Post-Quantum Encryption
- Evidence Suggests Ransomware Group Knew About MOVEit Zero-Day Since 2021
- Vulnerabilities in Honda eCommerce Platform Exposed Customer, Dealer Data
- Barracuda Urges Customers to Replace Hacked Email Security Appliances
- Google Patches Third Chrome Zero-Day of 2023
- ChatGPT Hallucinations Can Be Exploited to Distribute Malicious Code Packages
- AntChain, Intel Create New Privacy-Preserving Computing Platform for AI Training
- Several Major Organizations Confirm Being Impacted by MOVEit Attack
Latest News
- In Other News: AI Regulation, Layoffs, US Aerospace Attacks, Post-Quantum Encryption
- Blackpoint Raises $190 Million to Help MSPs Combat Cyber Threats
- Google Introduces SAIF, a Framework for Secure AI Development and Use
- ‘Asylum Ambuscade’ Group Hit Thousands in Cybercrime, Espionage Campaigns
- Evidence Suggests Ransomware Group Knew About MOVEit Zero-Day Since 2021
- SaaS Ransomware Attack Hit Sharepoint Online Without Using a Compromised Endpoint
- Google Cloud Now Offering $1 Million Cryptomining Protection
- Democrats and Republicans Are Skeptical of US Spying Practices, an AP-NORC Poll Finds
