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Fencer Intel
critical 9.8

CVE-2017-16943 in the critical feed json

The receive_msg function in receive.c in the SMTP daemon in Exim 4.88 and 4.89 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a…

published 8y ago modified 4mo ago also EUVD-2017-8112

cvss
9.8
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
47.1%
EPSS 47.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 98%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

The receive_msg function in receive.c in the SMTP daemon in Exim 4.88 and 4.89 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (use-after-free) via vectors involving BDAT commands.

Patch / fix

  • exim4 Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 4.89-12

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2017-16943

  • exim openSUSE Tumbleweed 4.94.2-4.2
  • exim Package Hub 15 SP2 4.94.2-bp152.6.4.1
  • libspf2 Package Hub 15 SP2 1.2.10-bp152.5.1
  • exim Package Hub 15 SP1 4.94.2-bp151.2.4.1
  • libspf2 Package Hub 15 SP1 1.2.10-bp151.4.1
  • exim openSUSE Leap 15.2 4.94.2-lp152.8.3.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:10746-1openSUSE-SU-2021:0754-1openSUSE-SU-2021:0753-1openSUSE-SU-2021:0677-1

  • exim Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 +15 more 4.89-r7

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2017-16943

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • exim Arch Linux 4.89.1-1

arch linux advisories AVG-518

Is CVE-2017-16943 in your stack? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.

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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-2017-16943 updated cvss 9.8

exim: use-after-free in receive_msg function via vectors involving BDAT commands

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 exim
    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

Exploit prediction

47.15% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 98% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • github.com https://github.com/LetUsFsck/PoC-Exploit-Mirror/tree/master/CVE-2017-16944 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified
  • bugs.exim.org https://bugs.exim.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2199 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

Classification

Weakness

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.