- Description: An attacker gains unauthorized access to the Mailcatcher web interface or the underlying data storage (if configured to persist emails). They can then view captured emails containing sensitive information like passwords, API keys, or personal data that were sent during development or testing. This access could be achieved through network exposure, weak access controls, or compromised developer machines.
- Impact: Confidentiality breach, data leakage, potential identity theft, privacy violations, reputational damage for the organization if the data leak is publicized.
- Affected Component: Web Interface, Data Storage (if configured)
- Risk Severity: High
- Mitigation Strategies:
- Restrict network access to Mailcatcher's web interface (port 1080) and SMTP port (1025) to only the developer's local machine or a secure development network.
- Avoid using real production data in development environments where Mailcatcher is active. Use anonymized or synthetic data.
- Regularly clear captured emails in Mailcatcher.
- Implement authentication for the web interface using a reverse proxy if network access beyond the local machine is necessary.
- Encrypt data storage if Mailcatcher is configured to persist emails to a database.