CVE-2017-11503

Exp

PHPMailer 5.2.23 has XSS in the "From Email Address" and "To Email Address" fields of code_generator.php.

Published: 2017-07-20 Last update: 2026-05-13 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2017-11503 is rated High Exploit Risk (70.4/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 2.94%). 2 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2017-11503

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2017-11503

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-05-02 2.19% 2.94% +0.75%
2 2026-03-20 0.98% 2.19% +1.21%
3 2026-03-18 — 0.98% —

Full EPSS history (15 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2017-11503

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
6.1 3.0 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
Scope (S:C)
Breaking this can reach past the original component and bite other resources—bigger blast radius.
Confidentiality (C:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
Integrity (I:L)
Attackers could change some data, but it’s limited—not everything goes.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 2.8 2.7 [email protected]
4.3 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N Click to expand
Access vector (AV:N)
Can be exploited remotely over network reachability.
Access complexity (AC:M)
Exploitation needs some favorable conditions, but not exceptional ones.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:N)
No confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:P)
Partial integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:N)
No availability impact.
 8.6 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2017-11503

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2017-11503

GHSA-58mj-pw57-4vm2 · Severity: medium · Ecosystem: composer — Cross-site scripting in PHPMailer

OS Trackers for CVE-2017-11503

vendor priority summary link
debian unimportant CVE-2017-11503 unimportant priority: Debian including 1 source packages (libphp-phpmailer), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2017-11503
ubuntu low CVE-2017-11503 low priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (libphp-phpmailer), 16 status rows across 16 suites (artful, bionic, cosmic, disco, eoan, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, trusty, upstream, xenial, zesty): not-affected 9, ignored 3, released 3, DNE 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2017-11503

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2017-11503

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
phpmailer_project phpmailer 5.2.23 cpe:2.3:a:phpmailer_project:phpmailer:5.2.23:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2017-11503

URL Tags
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/99293/ Third Party Advisory VDB Entry
http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1039026 Third Party Advisory VDB Entry
https://cxsecurity.com/issue/WLB-2017060181 Exploit Third Party Advisory
https://packetstormsecurity.com/files/143138/phpmailer-xss.txt Exploit Third Party Advisory VDB Entry
https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer Product
https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer/releases/tag/v5.2.24 Patch Release Notes Third Party Advisory
cvelogic Threat Intelligence