[5.1.x] Fixed CVE-2024-45231 -- Avoided server error on password reset when email sending fails.

On successful submission of a password reset request, an email is sent
to the accounts known to the system. If sending this email fails (due to
email backend misconfiguration, service provider outage, network issues,
etc.), an attacker might exploit this by detecting which password reset
requests succeed and which ones generate a 500 error response.

Thanks to Thibaut Spriet for the report, and to Mariusz Felisiak, Adam
Johnson, and Sarah Boyce for the reviews.

1 files changed, 11 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/docs/releases/4.2.16.txt b/docs/releases/4.2.16.txt
index 2a84186867..963036345c 100644
--- a/docs/releases/4.2.16.txt
+++ b/docs/releases/4.2.16.txt
@@ -13,3 +13,14 @@ CVE-2024-45230: Potential denial-of-service vulnerability in ``django.utils.html
 :tfilter:`urlize` and :tfilter:`urlizetrunc` were subject to a potential
 denial-of-service attack via very large inputs with a specific sequence of
 characters.
+
+CVE-2024-45231: Potential user email enumeration via response status on password reset
+======================================================================================
+
+Due to unhandled email sending failures, the
+:class:`~django.contrib.auth.forms.PasswordResetForm` class allowed remote
+attackers to enumerate user emails by issuing password reset requests and
+observing the outcomes.
+
+To mitigate this risk, exceptions occurring during password reset email sending
+are now handled and logged using the :ref:`django-contrib-auth-logger` logger.