What is CVE-2020-28008?

CVE-2020-28008 is a high-severity vulnerability in Exim, classified under Improper Privilege Management. CVSS score: 7.8/10. Published 2021-05-06.

How severe is CVE-2020-28008?

High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.8 out of 10.

Is CVE-2020-28008 known to be exploited?

3 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

Privilege escalation in Exim

CVE-2020-28008

Exim 4 before 4.94.2 allows Execution with Unnecessary Privileges. Because Exim operates as root in the spool directory (owned by a non-root user), an attacker can write to a /var/spool/exim4/input spool header file, in which a crafted recipient address can indirectly lead to command execution.

Vulnerability class: Privilege Escalation

EPSS: 0.004 (33.1th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.8 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

Affected products

Exim
N/a — versions n/a

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-269 — Improper Privilege Management

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

cve@mitre.org (x_refsource_MISC, Vendor Advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2020-28008?: CVE-2020-28008 is a high-severity vulnerability in Exim, classified under Improper Privilege Management. CVSS score: 7.8/10. Published 2021-05-06.
How severe is CVE-2020-28008?: High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.8 out of 10.
Is CVE-2020-28008 known to be exploited?: 3 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.