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Fencer Intel
high 7.5

CVE-2020-13625 json

Insufficient output escaping of attachment names in PHPMailer

published 6y ago modified 2mo ago also BIT-phpmailer-2020-13625 , EUVD-2020-0422 , GHSA-f7hx-fqxw-rvvj

cvss
7.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
3.8%
EPSS 3.8% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 90%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

PHPMailer before 6.1.6 contains an output escaping bug when the name of a file attachment contains a double quote character. This can result in the file type being misinterpreted by the receiver or any mail relay processing the message.

Patch / fix

  • packagist phpmailer/phpmailer 6.1.6
  • bitnami phpmailer 6.1.6
  • phpmailer_project phpmailer 6.1.6
  • libphp-phpmailer Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 6.1.6-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2020-13625

  • libphp-phpmailer Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 5.2.14+dfsg-2.3+deb9u2build0.18.04.1
  • libphp-phpmailer Ubuntu Pro 16.04 LTS 5.2.14+dfsg-1ubuntu0.1~esm1
  • libphp-phpmailer Ubuntu Pro 20.04 LTS 6.0.6-0.1ubuntu0.1~esm1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2020-13625

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

  • cacti openSUSE Tumbleweed 1.2.18-1.2
  • cacti-spine Package Hub 15 SP1 1.2.13-bp151.4.12.1
  • cacti Package Hub 15 SP1 1.2.13-bp151.4.12.1
  • cacti-spine Package Hub 12, openSUSE Leap 15.2, openSUSE Leap 15.1 1.2.13-8.1
  • cacti Package Hub 12, openSUSE Leap 15.2, openSUSE Leap 15.1 1.2.13-11.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:10670-1openSUSE-SU-2020:1106-1openSUSE-SU-2020:1060-1

  • cacti Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 +9 more 1.2.13-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2020-13625

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

Is CVE-2020-13625 in your dependencies? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.

Check with Fencer

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-2020-13625 updated cvss 7.5

php-PHPMailer: output escaping could result in the file type being misinterpreted

  • 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

Exploit prediction

3.78% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 90% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • github.com https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer/security/advisories/GHSA-f7hx-fqxw-rvvj referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
GitHub 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
NVD 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
NVD 2.0 5.0 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N
OSV 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
packagist phpmailer/phpmailer
<6.1.6
6.1.6
bitnami phpmailer
<6.1.6
6.1.6

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-116 Improper Encoding or Escaping of Output

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.