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Fencer Intel
critical 9.8

CVE-2016-10074 in the critical feed json

Swift Mailer mail transport Command Injection

published 2016-12-30 9 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also GHSA-pr44-4jfr-286m , EUVD-2022-4814

cvss
9.8
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
43.8%
EPSS 43.8% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 98%
public exploits
3
Exploit-DB

Summary

The mail transport (aka Swift_Transport_MailTransport) in Swift Mailer before 5.4.5 might allow remote attackers to pass extra parameters to the mail command and consequently execute arbitrary code via a \" (backslash double quote) in a crafted e-mail address in the (1) From, (2) ReturnPath, or (3) Sender header.

Patch / fix

  • packagist swiftmailer/swiftmailer 5.4.5
  • libphp-swiftmailer Debian 14, Debian 12 5.4.2-1.1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2016-10074

  • libphp-swiftmailer Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 5.4.2-1.1
  • libphp-swiftmailer Ubuntu Pro 16.04 LTS 5.4.1-1ubuntu1+esm1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2016-10074

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2016-10074 updated cvss 9.8

php-swiftmailer: Parameter injection via mail() function

  • Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Timeline

  1. First public exploit (EDB-40972)
  2. Published

Exploit prediction

43.79% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 98% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • EDB-42221 PHPMailer < 5.2.20 with Exim MTA - Remote Code Execution webapps, 2017-06-21
  • EDB-40986 PHPMailer < 5.2.20 / SwiftMailer < 5.4.5-DEV / Zend Framework / zend-mail < 2.4.11 - 'AIO' 'PwnScriptum' Remote Code Execution webapps, 2017-01-02
  • EDB-40972 SwiftMailer < 5.4.5-DEV - Remote Code Execution webapps, 2016-12-28
  • legalhackers.com https://legalhackers.com/advisories/SwiftMailer-Exploit-Remote-Code-Exec-CVE-2016-10074-Vuln.html referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified
  • packetstormsecurity.com http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/140290/SwiftMailer-Remote-Code-Execution.html referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified
  • seclists.org http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2016/Dec/86 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 9.8 CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 7.5 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
GitHub 3.0 9.8 CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
packagist swiftmailer/swiftmailer
<5.4.5
5.4.5

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-77 Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in a Command

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.