CVE-2024-35226 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.3) Code Injection vulnerability in smarty/smarty. A fix is available for smarty/smarty — see the affected versions and patch details below.
PHP Code Injection by malicious attribute in extends-tag in Smarty
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2024-35226.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2024-35226 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 376,715 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
smarty/smarty🐘smarty/smartyReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Packagist packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Smarty is a template engine for PHP, facilitating the separation of presentation (HTML/CSS) from application logic. In affected versions template authors could inject php code by choosing a malicious file name for an extends-tag. Sites that cannot fully trust template authors should update asap. All users are advised to update. There is no patch for users on the v3 branch. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐘Packagist | smarty/smarty | ≥ 5.0.0&&< 5.1.1 | 5.1.1composer require smarty/smarty:^5.1.1 |
| 🐘Packagist | smarty/smarty | ≥ 3.0.0&&< 4.5.3 | 4.5.3composer require smarty/smarty:^4.5.3 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for smarty/smarty, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update smarty/smarty to 5.1.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2024-35226 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2024-35226 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2024-35226. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2024-35226 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2024-35226 across Packagist dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.