CVE-2022-45471 is a vulnerability identified in JetBrains Hub versions prior to 2022.3.15181. The issue stems from a missing throttling mechanism when the application sends emails to a particular email address. Specifically, the vulnerability is categorized under CWE-770, which relates to the improper limitation of a resource consumption, in this case, the email sending functionality. Without throttling, an attacker could potentially cause the system to send an excessive number of emails to a targeted address, leading to resource exhaustion or denial of service conditions. The vulnerability has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 3.5, indicating a low severity level. The vector details indicate that the attack can be performed remotely (AV:N), requires high attack complexity (AC:H), low privileges (PR:L), no user interaction (UI:N), and has a scope change (S:C). The impact affects availability (A:L) but not confidentiality or integrity. No known exploits in the wild have been reported, and no patches or mitigation links were provided in the source data. The vulnerability does not allow direct compromise of data confidentiality or integrity but could degrade service availability by overwhelming the email subsystem or related resources. Given the scope change, the vulnerability could affect components beyond the initially targeted subsystem, potentially impacting other parts of the Hub application or connected services. The lack of throttling could be exploited by an authenticated user with low privileges, but no user interaction is required once the attack is initiated.

For European organizations using JetBrains Hub, this vulnerability could lead to service disruptions due to resource exhaustion caused by excessive email sending. While the impact on confidentiality and integrity is negligible, availability degradation could affect collaboration and project management workflows dependent on Hub's email notifications. Organizations with high reliance on automated email notifications for task assignments, alerts, or user communications may experience delays or failures in these processes. This could indirectly impact productivity and operational efficiency. Additionally, if the email system is abused to send large volumes of emails, it could lead to reputational damage or blacklisting of the organization's email domains. However, the requirement for low privileges and high attack complexity somewhat limits the likelihood of exploitation. The absence of known exploits suggests limited active threat, but the potential for denial of service or resource exhaustion remains a concern, especially in environments with many users or automated processes triggering email notifications.

To mitigate this vulnerability, European organizations should first ensure that their JetBrains Hub installations are updated to version 2022.3.15181 or later, where the throttling issue has been addressed. In the absence of an official patch link, contacting JetBrains support for the latest updates or workarounds is recommended. Additionally, organizations can implement email rate limiting at the infrastructure level, such as configuring their mail servers or gateways to detect and throttle excessive email traffic originating from Hub. Monitoring email sending patterns for anomalies can help detect potential exploitation attempts early. Restricting access to Hub to trusted users and enforcing strong authentication policies can reduce the risk posed by low-privilege attackers. Network segmentation and application-layer firewalls can also help limit exposure. Finally, reviewing and adjusting Hub's email notification settings to minimize unnecessary automated emails can reduce the attack surface related to this vulnerability.