eml_parser Prior to 3.0.2 URL Validation Bypass

Executive Summary

The vulnerability in eml_parser versions prior to 3.0.2 involves incorrect URL extraction due to HTML entities. The library validates URLs before unescaping HTML-encoded characters like colon, slash, or period. This causes valid URLs with these encoded characters to be rejected and excluded from extracted URL and domain lists, allowing malicious links to bypass security checks.

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Detection Guidance

Check the version of eml_parser installed on your system. If it is below 3.0.2, the vulnerability is present. Run: pip show eml_parser or pip list | grep eml_parser to verify the version.

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Impact Analysis

Email security gateways and SOC pipelines relying on extracted URL lists may fail to detect malicious links hidden in HTML-encoded URLs. This allows these links to bypass threat intelligence feeds, reputation services, or sandboxes, potentially leading to malware infections or data breaches without proper inspection.

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Compliance Impact

This vulnerability could indirectly impact compliance with GDPR or HIPAA by allowing malicious URLs to bypass security inspection in email security gateways or SOC pipelines. If URLs containing HTML-encoded characters are not extracted and checked against threat intelligence feeds, organizations may fail to detect phishing or malware distribution attempts, potentially violating data protection or security requirements.

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Mitigation Strategies

Upgrade eml_parser to version 3.0.2 or later. Use: pip install --upgrade eml_parser. Ensure your email security gateways and SOC pipelines are updated to process URLs correctly after the upgrade.

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