CVE-2017-5223: phpmailer_project phpmailer
Vulnerability summary
CVE-2017-5223 is a medium (CVSS 5.5) vulnerability in phpmailer_project phpmailer. EPSS estimates a 2.14% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 81.7% of scored vulnerabilities. 2 public exploits are recorded.
Advisory lineage
Upstream 0 · Downstream 3 · Related 1Timeline
- 16-01-2017PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
- 05-08-2024Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.
Description
An issue was discovered in PHPMailer before 5.2.22. PHPMailer's msgHTML method applies transformations to an HTML document to make it usable as an email message body. One of the transformations is to convert relative image URLs into attachments using a script-provided base directory. If no base directory is provided, it resolves to /, meaning that relative image URLs get treated as absolute local file paths and added as attachments. To form a remote vulnerability, the msgHTML method must be called, passed an unfiltered, user-supplied HTML document, and must not set a base directory.
CVSS metrics
4 scores · 3 sources · 2 versions- OSV · UbuntuEcosystem advisory · calculated5.5MediumCVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
- OSV · DebianEcosystem advisory · calculated5.5MediumCVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
EPSS trend
Probability
2.14%
Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days
Percentile
82%
Versus all other CVEs
30-day change
-0.02 pp
From 2.16% on 19-09-2026
Known exploited
Compare KEV catalogsNot in any of the 3 tracked catalogs.
Public exploits
2 foundExploit Reference (kalilinux.co)
Maturity: unknown
PHPMailer < 5.2.21 - Local File Disclosure
Maturity: poc
Weaknesses
CWE · root causeAffected systems
Debian1 product
- libphp-phpmailer< 5.2.14+dfsg-2.3 | < 5.1-1.3+deb7u1
Phpmailer_project1 product
- phpmailer≤ 5.2.21
Ubuntu1 product
- libphp-phpmailer< 5.2.14+dfsg-1ubuntu0.1~esm1
3 vendors · 3 products
References
8 links- kalilinux.co/2017/01/12/phpmailer-cve-2017-5223-local-information-disclosure-vulnerability-analysis/X Refsource MISCExploitThird Party AdvisoryREPORT
- github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer/blob/master/SECURITY.mdX Refsource MISCIssue TrackingPatchThird Party AdvisoryREPORT
