CVE-2017-1000163 — phoenix
MEDIUMCVE-2017-1000163 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.1) Open Redirect vulnerability in phoenix. A fix is available for phoenix — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Phoenix Arbitrary URL Redirect
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
Real-World Exposure
phoenix💧phoenix💧phoenixReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Hex packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
The Phoenix team designed Phoenix.Controller.redirect/2 to protect against redirects allowing user input to redirect to an external URL where your application code otherwise assumes a local path redirect. This is why the :to option is used for “local” URL redirects and why you must pass the :external option to intentionally allow external URLs to be redirected to. It has been disclosed that carefully crafted user input may be treated by some browsers as an external URL. An attacker can use this vulnerability to aid in social engineering attacks. The most common use would be to create highly believable phishing attacks. For example, the following user input would pass local URL validation, but be treated by Chrome and Firefox as external URLs:
http://localhost:4000/?redirect=/\nexample.com
Not all browsers are affected, but latest Chrome and Firefox will issue a get request for example.com and successfully redirect externally
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 💧Hex | phoenix | all versions | 1.0.6mix deps.update phoenix |
| 💧Hex | phoenix | ≥ 1.1.0&&< 1.1.8 | 1.1.8mix deps.update phoenix |
| 💧Hex | phoenix | ≥ 1.2.0&&< 1.2.3 | 1.2.3mix deps.update phoenix |
Affected Products
phoenixphoenixframeworkDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for phoenix, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update phoenix to 1.0.6 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2017-1000163 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Stop reflecting attacker-controlled destinations: resolve every redirect target against an allowlist of paths or hosts you own, prefer a server-side key over a full URL in the request, and reject absolute URLs entirely where the flow only ever needs a relative one.
How to detect CVE-2017-1000163
A community-maintained Nuclei template exists for this CVE. You can scan for it directly:
nuclei -id cve-2017-1000163 -u https://target- Template
- Phoenix Framework - Open Redirect
- Severity
- medium
- Impact
- An attacker can craft a malicious URL that redirects users to a malicious website, leading to potential phishing attacks.
- Remediation
- Apply the latest security patches or upgrade to a patched version of the Phoenix Framework.
Template by ProjectDiscovery nuclei-templates (0x_Akoko), MIT licensed. View the full template. Scan only systems you are authorised to test.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2017-1000163 in your dependencies?
Find it across Hex, including transitive dependencies.