SB2017011120 - Multiple vulnerabilities in in phpmailer.sourceforge.net PHPMailer
Published: January 11, 2017 Updated: July 7, 2025
Breakdown by Severity
- Low
- Medium
- High
- Critical
Description
This security bulletin contains information about 2 secuirty vulnerabilities.
1) Remote code injection (CVE-ID: CVE-2016-10033)
The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on the target system.
The vulnerability exists due to insufficient sanitization of user-supplied input passed via specially crafted “From” address to mailSend() function. A remote attacker can use backslashed double quote character (e.g. \") to pass additional commands to original mail command and execute them with privileges of the current web server user.
Successful exploitation of the vulnerability may result in system compromise.
2) Remote code injection (CVE-ID: CVE-2016-10045)
The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on the target system.
The vulnerability exists in PHPMailer due to insufficient sanitization of user-supplied input, when Sender property is not set. A remote attacker can use backslashed double quote character (e.g. \”) to pass additional commands to original mail command and execute them with privileges of the current web server user.
Successful exploitation of the vulnerability may result in system compromise.
Note: this vulnerability exists due to incorrect fix for vulnerability SB2016122601 (CVE-2016-10033)
Remediation
Install update from vendor's website.
References
- http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/140291/PHPMailer-Remote-Code-Execution.html
- http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2016/Dec/78
- http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/archive/1/539963/100/0/threaded
- http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/95108
- https://developer.joomla.org/security-centre/668-20161205-phpmailer-security-advisory.html
- https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer/releases/tag/v5.2.18
- https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer/wiki/About-the-CVE-2016-10033-and-CVE-2016-10045-vulnerabilit...
- https://legalhackers.com/advisories/PHPMailer-Exploit-Remote-Code-Exec-CVE-2016-10033-Vuln.html
- https://www.drupal.org/psa-2016-004
- https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/40968/
- https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/40970/
- https://legalhackers.com/advisories/PHPMailer-Exploit-Remote-Code-Exec-CVE-2016-10045-Vuln-Patch-Byp...