What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2023-46116: Remote Code Execution via insufficiently sanitized call to shell.openExternal

• Severity: high (CVSS 8.8 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 1.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: yes
• Published: 2023-12-15 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-20

Description

Tutanota (Tuta Mail) is an encrypted email provider. Tutanota allows users to open links in emails in external applications. Prior to version 3.118.12, it correctly blocks the `file:` URL scheme, which can be used by malicious actors to gain code execution on a victims computer, however fails to check other harmful schemes such as `ftp:`, `smb:`, etc. which can also be used. Successful exploitation of this vulnerability will enable an attacker to gain code execution on a victim's computer. Version 3.118.2 contains a patch for this issue.

Affected products

• tutao tutanota: before 3.118.12 — fixed in 3.118.12

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: tutao tutanota 3.118.12. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://github.com/tutao/tutanota/blob/master/src/desktop/ApplicationWindow.ts#L417
• https://github.com/tutao/tutanota/blob/master/src/desktop/ApplicationWindow.ts#L423
• https://github.com/tutao/tutanota/commit/88ecad17d00d05a722399aed35f0d280899d55a2
• https://github.com/tutao/tutanota/security/advisories/GHSA-mxgj-pq62-f644
• https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/46137338/270564886-7a0389d3-f9ef-44e1-9f5e-57ccc72dcaa8.mp4
• https://github.com/tutao/tutanota/blob/master/src/desktop/ApplicationWindow.ts#L417
• https://github.com/tutao/tutanota/blob/master/src/desktop/ApplicationWindow.ts#L423
• https://github.com/tutao/tutanota/commit/88ecad17d00d05a722399aed35f0d280899d55a2
• https://github.com/tutao/tutanota/security/advisories/GHSA-mxgj-pq62-f644
• https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/46137338/270564886-7a0389d3-f9ef-44e1-9f5e-57ccc72dcaa8.mp4

Get alerted when CVE-2023-46116 or the next vulnerability affects your stack