CVE DATABASE / CVE-2010-4345
CVE-2010-4345
Exim Privilege Escalation Vulnerability
CVSS 7.8 · HIGH
⚠ CISA KEV — ACTIVELY EXPLOITED
On the CISA KEV catalog
Confirmed exploited in the wild. Added 2022-03-25.
Federal remediation due 2022-04-15.
Required action: Apply updates per vendor instructions.
Summary
Exim 4.72 and earlier allows local users to gain privileges by leveraging the ability of the exim user account to specify an alternate configuration file with a directive that contains arbitrary commands, as demonstrated by the spool_directory directive.
CVSS 3.1 breakdown
| Base score | 7.8 (HIGH) |
| Vector | CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |
| Attack vector | LOCAL |
| Attack complexity | LOW |
| Privileges required | LOW |
| User interaction | NONE |
| Scope | UNCHANGED |
| Confidentiality | HIGH |
| Integrity | HIGH |
| Availability | HIGH |
Weakness type (CWE)
Affected products
Exim eximOpensuse opensuseDebian debian linuxCanonical ubuntu linux
Check this CVE live
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References
- http://bugs.exim.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1044
- http://lists.exim.org/lurker/message/20101209.172233.abcba158.en.html
- http://lists.exim.org/lurker/message/20101210.164935.385e04d0.en.html
- http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2010-12/msg00003.html
- http://openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2010/12/10/1
- http://secunia.com/advisories/42576
- http://secunia.com/advisories/42930
- http://secunia.com/advisories/43128
- http://secunia.com/advisories/43243
- http://www.cpanel.net/2010/12/critical-exim-security-update.html
- http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2131
- http://www.debian.org/security/2011/dsa-2154
- http://www.exim.org/lurker/message/20101207.215955.bb32d4f2.en.html
- http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/758489
- http://www.metasploit.com/modules/exploit/unix/smtp/exim4_string_format
Data: NIST NVD + CISA KEV. NVD last modified 2026-04-21. Always verify against the vendor advisory before acting.