Exim before 4.92.2 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code as root via a trailing backslash.
CVE-2019-15846
This critical-severity CVE scores 9.8 under NVD CVSS v3. EPSS exploit probability: 36% (98th percentile of EPSS-scored CVEs). 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).
- High severity, but no confirmed exploitation yet
A fix is available — apply it.
- CVSS v3
- 9.8
- EG Score
- 9.8CRITICALmedium confidence
- EG Risk
- 65EG Risk 65/100CISA SSVC
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 computedSeverity98% × 45%Exploitation40% × 40%Automatability30% × 15%CISA SSVC: Track at low, Track* at medium and Attend at high mission impact.Action: A fix is available. Apply it within your standard update timelines at low or medium mission impact and sooner than that at high. - EPSS PROB
- 36%
- EPSS %ILE
- 98th
- KEV
- Not listed
CISA SSVCTrack at low, Track* at medium and Attend at high mission impact.
A fix is available. Apply it within your standard update timelines at low or medium mission impact and sooner than that at high.
Exploitation public PoC (EG-KEV: elevated) · Automatable unknown (not published for this CVE) · Technical impact total (CVSS ≥ 9.0). Mission impact is CISA's Mission & Well-being decision point, and only you can judge it: high means the affected system is essential to your organisation's mission, or its compromise could cause irreversible harm to people. CISA's decision table
Published
September 6, 2019
Last Modified
November 21, 2024
Advisory Details (9)
Auto-updated Oct 5, 2026oss-security - Re: Re: CVE-2019-15846: Exim - local or remote attacker can execute programs with root privileges.
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2019/09/08/1oss-security - Re: Sv: [exim] CVE-2019-15846: Exim - local or remote attacker can execute programs with root privileges
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2019/09/07/2oss-security - Re: Sv: [exim] CVE-2019-15846: Exim - local or remote attacker can execute programs with root privileges
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2019/09/07/1oss-security - Re: Re: CVE-2019-15846: Exim - local or remote attacker can execute programs with root privileges.
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2019/09/06/8oss-security - Sv: [exim] CVE-2019-15846: Exim - local or remote attacker can execute programs with root privileges
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2019/09/06/6oss-security - Re: CVE-2019-15846: Exim - local or remote attacker can execute programs with root privileges.
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2019/09/06/5oss-security - Re: CVE-2019-15846: Exim - local or remote attacker can execute programs with root privileges.
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2019/09/06/4oss-security - Re: CVE-2019-15846: Exim - local or remote attacker can execute programs with root privileges.
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2019/09/06/2Patch Availability(2)
| Vendor / Ecosystem | Fix (by version range) / Patch | Released | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| ubuntu | exim4-base (4.82-3ubuntu2.4+esm1) @ trusty | 2026-05-27 | ubuntu |
| ubuntu | eximon4 (4.86.2-2ubuntu2.5) @ xenial | 2026-05-27 | ubuntu |
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
(7 across 7 ecosystems)
Debian:10(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fix by version range | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| exim4 | 4.92-8, 4.92-8+deb10u1, 4.92-8+deb10u1~bpo9+1, 4.92-8+deb10u2~bpo9+1 |
| — |
Debian:11(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fix by version range | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| exim4 | — |
| — |
Debian:12(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fix by version range | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| exim4 | — |
| — |
Debian:13(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fix by version range | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| exim4 | — |
| — |
Debian:14(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fix by version range | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| exim4 | — |
| — |
Debian:8(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fix by version range | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| exim4 | 4.84-8 ... 4.84.2-2+deb8u5 (11 versions) |
| — |
Debian:9(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fix by version range | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| exim4 | 4.89-2 ... 4.89-2+deb9u5 (8 versions) |
| — |
All Vendor Advisories
(2)
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 4× in last 7d / 21× 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.
Showing the most recent 100 of 116 total refreshes for this CVE.
- 2026-10-05 17:39 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-10-03 14:21 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-30 14:59 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-30 10:12 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-09-27 19:50 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-09-27 13:40 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-26 15:53 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-26 00:20 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-24 13:59 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-23 13:43 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-21 20:27 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-18 19:22 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-17 19:22 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-16 14:04 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-15 03:05 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-13 16:42 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-12 14:56 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-11 14:48 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-08 21:55 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-08 04:52 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-09-06 13:44 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-05 15:24 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-04 13:56 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-04 05:02 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-02 14:07 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-08-30 19:13 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-30 01:18 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-28 21:36 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-26 14:42 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-25 13:45 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-21 23:45 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-21 15:14 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-08-20 22:51 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-19 17:00 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-18 13:44 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-16 14:52 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-16 02:10 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-15 01:26 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-13 21:56 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-12 13:47 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-07 16:23 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-06 01:21 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-08-05 19:13 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-04 15:05 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-04 10:33 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-02 02:23 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-01 04:12 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-30 16:24 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-28 15:32 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-26 14:51 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-25 14:14 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-24 14:14 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-24 14:14 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-23 01:41 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-07-22 22:20 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-07-22 14:05 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-20 17:04 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-20 07:04 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-07-19 02:26 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-19 02:26 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-16 16:59 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-16 16:59 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-15 16:55 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-13 22:27 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-13 06:10 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-13 06:10 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-12 05:43 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-11 08:24 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-09 19:06 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-07 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-05 02:27 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-03 00:35 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-07-02 16:56 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-01 15:03 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-01 15:03 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-30 23:20 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-30 23:20 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-29 14:03 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-28 04:54 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-28 04:53 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-27 03:06 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-27 03:06 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-25 13:47 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-25 13:47 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-24 14:03 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-24 14:02 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-23 21:30 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-23 21:30 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-21 01:57 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-21 01:57 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-18 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-17 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-16 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-15 17:45 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-14 19:13 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-06-13 22:58 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-12 23:09 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-11 13:58 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-11 13:58 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-10 22:16 UTCEPSS rescore
Publicly available exploits
(1 reference)Working exploit code is in the public domain (1 GitHub PoC). Defenders should treat patch urgency accordingly — public PoCs typically lead to mass-exploitation within 24-72 hours.
- GitHub PoCsynacktiv/Exim-CVE-2019-15846First seen Oct 9, 2019
PoC materials to exploit CVE-2019-15846
Open source ↗
Related CVEs(same product)
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- CVE-2019-13917EG 9.8EPSS p95CRITICAL
- CVE-2020-28021EG 8.8EPSS p91HIGH
- CVE-2020-28019NVD 7.5EG 8.4EPSS p99HIGH
Frequently asked(5)
What is CVE-2019-15846?
When was CVE-2019-15846 disclosed?
Is CVE-2019-15846 actively exploited?
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2019-15846?
How do I remediate CVE-2019-15846?
Dependency Blast Radius
See which npm, PyPI, Go, and Maven packages are affected by CVE-2019-15846
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