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GHSA-m298-fh5c-jc66critical9.8

Object injection in PHPMailer/PHPMailer

Impact

This is a reintroduction of an earlier issue (CVE-2018-19296) by an unrelated bug fix in PHPMailer 6.1.8. An external file may be unexpectedly executable if it is used as a path to an attachment file via PHP's support for .phar files. Exploitation requires that an attacker is able to provide an unfiltered path to a file to attach, or to trick calling code into generating one. See this article for more info.

Source excerpt · OSV
Applies when

Exploitation requires that an attacker is able to provide an unfiltered path to a file to attach, or to trick calling code into generating one.

Affected packages

Start with the recorded fix for your release branch. Check your installed version and test compatibility before upgrading. Fixing this advisory does not rule out other vulnerabilities in the release.

phpmailer/phpmailer Packagist
Affected rangeRecorded fix
From 6.1.8 before 6.4.1Ecosystem versions6.4.1

Version evidence: OSV · GHSA-m298-fh5c-jc66

View original version evidence (4 explicit versions)

Original source description

Impact

This is a reintroduction of an earlier issue (CVE-2018-19296) by an unrelated bug fix in PHPMailer 6.1.8. An external file may be unexpectedly executable if it is used as a path to an attachment file via PHP's support for .phar files. Exploitation requires that an attacker is able to provide an unfiltered path to a file to attach, or to trick calling code into generating one. See this article for more info.

Patches

This issue was patched in the PHPMailer 6.4.1 release. This release also implements stricter filtering for attachment paths; paths that look like any kind of URL are rejected.

Workarounds

Validate paths to loaded files using the same pattern as used in isPermittedPath() before using them in any PHP file function, such as file_exists. This method can't be used directly because it is protected, but you can implement the same thing in calling code. Note that this should be applied to all user-supplied paths passed into such functions; it's not a problem specific to PHPMailer.

Credit

This issue was found by Fariskhi Vidyan, reported and managed via Tidelift.

References