CVE-2019-10149 — exim
CRITICALCVE-2019-10149 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) OS Command Injection vulnerability. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2022-01-10) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2022-01-10. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2022-07-10.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA (KEV catalog and SSVC triage) for CVE-2019-10149.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2019-10149 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). In the shaded patch-first corner (EPSS 50%+, CVSS 7.0+).
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 394,415 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the ≥ 90% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
A flaw was found in Exim versions 4.87 to 4.91 (inclusive). Improper validation of recipient address in deliver_message() function in /src/deliver.c may lead to remote command execution.
Affected Products
ubuntu linuxcanonicaldebian linuxdebianeximeximResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Exim 4.87 - 4.91 - Local Privilege Escalation
by Marco Ivaldi · Jun 17, 2019
Exim 4.87 / 4.91 - Local Privilege Escalation (Metasploit)
by Metasploit · Aug 26, 2019
Exim 4.87 < 4.91 - (Local / Remote) Command Execution
by Qualys Corporation · Jun 5, 2019
Detection & mitigation playbook
VulnerabilityDetect
Identify every host running the affected component and compare the installed build against the fixed version below — for source-built or distro-packaged software the version string, not a lockfile, is the source of truth (`dpkg -l`, `rpm -q`, or the binary's own `--version`).
Remediation status
No fixed release is recorded for CVE-2019-10149 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
Stop passing untrusted input into the interpreter or shell: call the affected binary with an argument array rather than a composed command string, reject anything outside a strict allowlist of expected values, and run the component under an account that cannot reach beyond the work it legitimately does.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2019-10149 in your dependencies?
Find it across , including transitive dependencies.