Debian LinuxOperating system · Debian
CVE-2018-19296
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedPHPMailer before 5.2.27 and 6.x before 6.0.6 is vulnerable to an object injection attack.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · moderate confidencePHPMailer before 5.2.27 and 6.x before 6.0.6 is vulnerable to an object injection attack. In PHP, object injection typically occurs when unserialized data from untrusted sources is processed without proper validation, potentially allowing an attacker to instantiate arbitrary objects and possibly execute arbitrary code depending on available classes in the application context.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data
Debian LinuxOperating system
= 8.0= 9.0
FedoraOperating system
= 33= 34
WordPressCMS
>= 3.7, <= 5.7< 5.2.27>= 6.0.0, < 6.0.6CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- Required
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Locate PHPMailer installationSearch for class.phpmailer.php or the PHPMailer directory in your codebase. In WordPress, check wp-includes/PHPMailer.php. In Composer projects, check vendor/phpmailer/phpmailer/Affected if PHPMailer files exist in the environment
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Determine PHPMailer versionOpen the main PHPMailer file and look for the version string in the file header comment or $Version variable, or check composer.json version fieldAffected if Installed version is below 5.2.27, or is 6.0.0 through 6.0.5
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Verify WordPress version if applicableCheck wp-includes/version.php for the $wp_version variable, or view the meta generator tag in page sourceAffected if WordPress version is between 3.7 and 5.7 inclusive (these ship with vulnerable PHPMailer)
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Identify if untrusted data deserialization reaches PHPMailerSearch your application code for unserialize() calls where user input (GET, POST, cookies, or external APIs) is passed, and trace whether that data flows to PHPMailer methodsAffected if The application passes untrusted unserialized data to PHPMailer, which is required for exploitation
Environment is affected if vulnerable PHPMailer version (below 5.2.27 or 6.0.0-6.0.5) is present AND the application passes untrusted unserialized data to PHPMailer.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor data5.2.276.0.6
Upgrade PHPMailer to version 5.2.27 or 6.0.6 or later to patch the object injection vulnerability.
Fix this in Debian Linux
Scoped from the published advisory
- Consultation1.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $1,664.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2018-19296 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2018-19296 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.
- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
- No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data