PHPMailer versions prior to 6.0.6 and 5.2.27 are vulnerable to an object injection attack by passing phar:// paths into addAttachment() and other functions that may receive unfiltered local paths, possibly leading to RCE. See this article for more info on this type of vulnerability. Mitigated by blocking the use of paths containing URL-protocol style prefixes such as phar://. Reported by Sehun Oh of cyberone.kr.

Impact

Object injection, possible remote code execution

Patches

Fixed in 6.0.6 and 5.2.27

Workarounds

Validate and sanitise user input before using.

References

https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-19296

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:

• Open a private issue in the PHPMailer project

References

• GHSA-7w4p-72j7-v7c2
• https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-19296
• https://github.com/FriendsOfPHP/security-advisories/blob/master/phpmailer/phpmailer/CVE-2018-19296.yaml
• https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer/releases/tag/v5.2.27
• https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer/releases/tag/v6.0.6
• https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/12/msg00020.html
• https://www.debian.org/security/2018/dsa-4351
• https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/3B5WDPGUFNPG4NAZ6G4BZX43BKLAVA5B/
• https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/KPU66INRFY5BQ3ESVPRUXJR4DXQAFJVT/
• https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/3B5WDPGUFNPG4NAZ6G4BZX43BKLAVA5B/
• https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/KPU66INRFY5BQ3ESVPRUXJR4DXQAFJVT/