CVE-2017-5223

MEDIUMNVD 5.55.5—
EchelonGraph scoreMEDIUM confidence

This medium-severity CVE scores 5.5 under NVD CVSS v3. EPSS exploit probability: 2.2%, top 20% of all CVEs by exploit prediction. GitHub Security Advisory data not yet ingested — confidence will rise once GHSA publishes (typical lag: hours to days for open-source ecosystem CVEs; never for infrastructure-only CVEs).

Triggered by: NVD CVSS baseline
Sources: epss, nvd
Elevated
5.5
EchelonGraph verdictMonitorLow exploitation likelihood right now — keep watching.
  • Lower severity and no public exploit yet
CISA-KEV: Not listedEPSS: 2%CVSS: 5.5Exploit: NoneExposed: 0

A fix is available — apply it.

An issue was discovered in PHPMailer before 5.2.22. PHPMailer's msgHTML method applies transformations to an HTML document to make it usable as an email message body. One of the transformations is to convert relative image URLs into attachments using a script-provided base directory. If no base directory is provided, it resolves to /, meaning that relative image URLs get treated as absolute local file paths and added as attachments. To form a remote vulnerability, the msgHTML method must be called, passed an unfiltered, user-supplied HTML document, and must not set a base directory.

CVSS v3
5.5
EG Score
5.5(medium)
EG Risk
45(Track)
EG Risk 45/100SSVC: Track

EG Risk is EchelonGraph's 0–100 priority score: it fuses intrinsic severity with real-world exploitation and automatability so you can rank equal-severity CVEs and fix the most dangerous first. Higher = act sooner. Distinct from the 0–10 EG Score (severity).

How it’s computed
Severity55% × 45%
Exploitation40% × 40%
Automatability30% × 15%
Action: Routine — remediate on your standard cadence.
EPSS
80.3%
KEV
Not listed

Published

January 16, 2017

Last Modified

May 13, 2026

References (8)

Patch Availability(1)

Vendor / EcosystemFixed in / PatchReleasedSource
ubuntulibphp-phpmailer (6.0.6-0.1ubuntu0.1~esm1) @ focal2026-05-22ubuntu

Patches are aggregated from vendor advisories (Red Hat, Microsoft, Cisco, GitHub) and package ecosystems (OSV, GHSA). Multiple rows for the same upstream release have been deduplicated.

Affected Packages

(1 across 1 ecosystem)
Packagist(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFixed inDependents
phpmailer/phpmailerv5.2.10 ... v5.2.9 (19 versions)5.2.22—

All Vendor Advisories

(1)

Every vendor that published an advisory referencing this CVE — pulled from our cve_vendor_advisories aggregation. Click any row for the vendor's original advisory page.

Data Freshness Timeline

(refreshed 13× in last 7d / 41× in last 30d)

Each row is a source pipeline that fetched or updated this CVE on that date, with what changed. For example, "NVD update" means NVD published or revised its analysis for this CVE; "MITRE cvelistV5" means we ingested or refreshed it from the CNA feed. Most recent first.

  1. 2026-07-23 14:15 UTCEPSS rescore
  2. 2026-07-23 01:29 UTCEG score recompute
  3. 2026-07-22 22:09 UTCEG score recompute
  4. 2026-07-22 14:04 UTCEPSS rescore
  5. 2026-07-22 14:04 UTCEPSS rescore
  6. 2026-07-21 15:21 UTCEPSS rescore
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  8. 2026-07-20 17:04 UTCEPSS rescore
  9. 2026-07-19 14:28 UTCEPSS rescore
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  11. 2026-07-19 02:26 UTCEPSS rescore
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  13. 2026-07-18 10:00 UTCEPSS rescore
  14. 2026-07-16 16:59 UTCEPSS rescore
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  16. 2026-07-15 16:54 UTCEPSS rescore
  17. 2026-07-15 01:56 UTCEPSS rescore
  18. 2026-07-15 01:56 UTCEPSS rescore
  19. 2026-07-13 22:26 UTCEPSS rescore
  20. 2026-07-12 05:43 UTCEPSS rescore
  21. 2026-07-12 04:52 UTCOSV refresh
  22. 2026-07-11 08:24 UTCEPSS rescore
  23. 2026-07-09 19:06 UTCEPSS rescore
  24. 2026-07-08 15:10 UTCEPSS rescore
  25. 2026-07-07 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
Show 75 more
  1. 2026-07-06 16:24 UTCEPSS rescore
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  3. 2026-07-06 02:20 UTCEPSS rescore
  4. 2026-07-06 02:20 UTCEPSS rescore
  5. 2026-07-05 02:27 UTCEPSS rescore
  6. 2026-07-04 06:28 UTCEPSS rescore
  7. 2026-07-02 16:54 UTCEPSS rescore
  8. 2026-07-01 15:02 UTCEPSS rescore
  9. 2026-06-30 23:19 UTCEPSS rescore
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  11. 2026-06-29 14:03 UTCEPSS rescore
  12. 2026-06-28 14:04 UTCEPSS rescore
  13. 2026-06-28 04:53 UTCEPSS rescore
  14. 2026-06-27 03:06 UTCEPSS rescore
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  16. 2026-06-25 13:47 UTCEPSS rescore
  17. 2026-06-24 14:02 UTCEPSS rescore
  18. 2026-06-24 14:02 UTCEPSS rescore
  19. 2026-06-23 21:30 UTCEPSS rescore
  20. 2026-06-23 11:00 UTCOSV refresh
  21. 2026-06-21 14:54 UTCEPSS rescore
  22. 2026-06-21 14:54 UTCEPSS rescore
  23. 2026-06-21 01:57 UTCEPSS rescore
  24. 2026-06-21 01:57 UTCEPSS rescore
  25. 2026-06-19 19:23 UTCEPSS rescore
  26. 2026-06-19 19:23 UTCEPSS rescore
  27. 2026-06-18 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
  28. 2026-06-17 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
  29. 2026-06-16 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
  30. 2026-06-16 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
  31. 2026-06-15 17:45 UTCEPSS rescore
  32. 2026-06-14 23:14 UTCEPSS rescore
  33. 2026-06-13 22:57 UTCEPSS rescore
  34. 2026-06-12 23:09 UTCEPSS rescore
  35. 2026-06-10 22:15 UTCEPSS rescore
  36. 2026-06-10 13:19 UTCEPSS rescore
  37. 2026-06-08 14:14 UTCEPSS rescore
  38. 2026-06-08 14:14 UTCEPSS rescore
  39. 2026-06-07 15:22 UTCEPSS rescore
  40. 2026-06-07 15:22 UTCEPSS rescore
  41. 2026-06-06 13:45 UTCEPSS rescore
  42. 2026-06-06 13:45 UTCEPSS rescore
  43. 2026-06-06 12:40 UTCOSV refresh
  44. 2026-06-05 22:44 UTCEPSS rescore
  45. 2026-06-05 06:08 UTCEPSS rescore
  46. 2026-06-05 06:08 UTCEPSS rescore
  47. 2026-06-04 13:10 UTCEPSS rescore
  48. 2026-06-02 20:11 UTCEPSS rescore
  49. 2026-06-02 20:11 UTCEPSS rescore
  50. 2026-06-01 13:49 UTCEPSS rescore
  51. 2026-05-31 22:28 UTCEPSS rescore
  52. 2026-05-31 22:28 UTCEPSS rescore
  53. 2026-05-31 00:14 UTCEPSS rescore
  54. 2026-05-31 00:14 UTCEPSS rescore
  55. 2026-05-29 13:41 UTCEPSS rescore
  56. 2026-05-28 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
  57. 2026-05-28 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
  58. 2026-05-27 13:38 UTCEPSS rescore
  59. 2026-05-27 13:38 UTCEPSS rescore
  60. 2026-05-26 07:17 UTCEPSS rescore
  61. 2026-05-26 07:17 UTCEPSS rescore
  62. 2026-05-22 21:15 UTCEPSS rescore
  63. 2026-05-22 21:15 UTCEPSS rescore
  64. 2026-05-22 21:15 UTCEPSS rescore
  65. 2026-05-22 21:15 UTCEPSS rescore
  66. 2026-05-22 21:15 UTCEPSS rescore
  67. 2026-05-22 17:08 UTCEG score recompute
  68. 2026-05-22 17:08 UTCVendor advisory
  69. 2026-05-21 22:40 UTCEPSS rescore
  70. 2026-05-20 22:37 UTCEPSS rescore
  71. 2026-05-20 22:37 UTCEPSS rescore
  72. 2026-05-20 22:37 UTCEPSS rescore
  73. 2026-05-20 11:21 UTCEPSS rescore
  74. 2026-05-20 11:21 UTCEPSS rescore
  75. 2026-05-18 21:30 UTCEPSS rescore

Publicly available exploits

(1 reference)

Working exploit code is in the public domain (1 Exploit-DB entry). Defenders should treat patch urgency accordingly — public PoCs typically lead to mass-exploitation within 24-72 hours.

  • Exploit-DBEDB-43056
    First seen Oct 25, 2017

    PHPMailer < 5.2.21 - Local File Disclosure

    Open source ↗

Related CVEs(same vendor)

Frequently asked(5)

What is CVE-2017-5223?
CVE-2017-5223 is a medium vulnerability published on January 16, 2017. An issue was discovered in PHPMailer before 5.2.22. PHPMailer's msgHTML method applies transformations to an HTML document to make it usable as an email message body. One of the transformations is to convert relative image URLs into attachments using a script-provided base directory. If no base…
When was CVE-2017-5223 disclosed?
CVE-2017-5223 was first published in the National Vulnerability Database on January 16, 2017, with the most recent update on May 13, 2026. EchelonGraph re-ingests CVE updates from NVD on a 2-hour cycle, so this page reflects the latest published state.
Is CVE-2017-5223 actively exploited?
CVE-2017-5223 is not currently on CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. FIRST EPSS estimates a 80.3% percentile likelihood of exploitation in the next 30 days — higher percentiles indicate greater predicted risk.
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2017-5223?
CVE-2017-5223 has a CVSS v3 base score of 5.5 (NVD).
How do I remediate CVE-2017-5223?
Patch to the fixed version published by the affected vendor. Where vendor advisories exist for CVE-2017-5223, EchelonGraph cross-links them in the Vendor Advisories panel below — those typically contain the canonical remediation steps, fixed version numbers, and any vendor-specific mitigations.

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