CVE-2017-5223

Exp

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.

Published: 2017-01-16 Last update: 2026-05-13 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2017-5223 is rated High Exploit Risk (67.3/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 2.92%). 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-2017-5223

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
43056 exploit_db edb 2017-10-25 Exploit-DB ↗
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2017-5223

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 2026-06-03 3.00% 2.92% -0.08%
2 2026-05-22 2.92% 3.00% +0.08%
3 2026-03-25 — 2.92% —

Full EPSS history (23 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2017-5223

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.5 3.0 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
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:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 1.8 3.6 [email protected]
2.1 2.0 LOW
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Access vector (AV:L)
Requires local access to the target system.
Access complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and predictable.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:P)
Partial confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:N)
No integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:N)
No availability impact.
 3.9 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2017-5223

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2017-5223

GHSA-4x5h-cr29-fhp6 · Severity: medium · Ecosystem: composer — Local file disclosure in PHPMailer

OS Trackers for CVE-2017-5223

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2017-5223 not yet assigned 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-2017-5223
suse low — https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2017-5223/
ubuntu medium CVE-2017-5223 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (libphp-phpmailer), 16 status rows across 16 suites (artful, bionic, cosmic, disco, eoan, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, precise, trusty, upstream, xenial, yakkety, zesty): not-affected 9, ignored 4, released 2, DNE 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2017-5223

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2017-5223

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
phpmailer_project phpmailer <= 5.2.21 cpe:2.3:a:phpmailer_project:phpmailer:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2017-5223

cvelogic Threat Intelligence