Remote code injection in PHPMailer - CVE-2016-10045
Published: January 3, 2017 / Updated: April 7, 2020
Vulnerability identifier: #VU3119
CSH Severity: High
CVSS v4.0: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:A/U:Amber
CVE-ID: CVE-2016-10045
CWE-ID: CWE-94
Exploitation vector: Remote access
Exploit availability:
Public exploit is available
Vendor: phpmailer.sourceforge.net
Affected software:
PHPMailer
PHPMailer
Detailed vulnerability description
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)
How to mitigate CVE-2016-10045
Install the latest version 5.2.21 from vendor's website.