CVE-2020-36326

highpriority · track · 40EPSS 0.031 · 88 %ileEUUS
grimoire priorityP2 · Scheduled
Exploitable?
—
no known exploitation
Likely / severe?
3.09% (88th) EPSS
CVSS 7.5 · high
Is it mine?
67 products
Check your exposure
Who says so?
4 sources
cnnvd · enisa_euvd · osv · nvd

EPSS · scored 2026-10-27

PHPMailer 6.1.8 through 6.4.0 allows object injection through Phar Deserialization via addAttachment with a UNC pathname. NOTE: this is similar to CVE-2018-19296, but arose because 6.1.8 fixed a functionality problem in which UNC pathnames were always considered unreadable by PHPMailer, even in safe contexts. As an unintended side effect, this fix eliminated the code that blocked addAttachment exploitation.

01

cvss

Technical severity, 0–10. One row per scoring source.

9.8
010

base score 0–10 · higher = more severe · hover a vector to decode⚠ sources disagree · high–critical · 7.5–9.8

v2.07.5highAV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:Pprimary · NVD / NIST USexploitability 10 · impact 6.4
v3.19.8criticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:Hprimary · NVD / NIST USexploitability 3.9 · impact 5.9
v3.19.8criticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:Hsecondary · OSV
v3.19criticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H/E:Usecondary · CVSS-BT (t0sche)
02

weaknesses

The CWE weakness classes this flaw belongs to.

03

affected products (67)

Products and version ranges known to be affected.

showing 20 of 67
04

advisories (4)

Vendor and ecosystem advisories describing this.

  • GHSA-m298-fh5c-jc66Object injection in PHPMailer/PHPMailer2021-05-04ghsa · osvUS

    ### 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](https://knasmueller.net/5-answers-about-php-phar-exploitation) 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()`](https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer/blob/master/src/PHPMailer.php#L1815) 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](https://github.com/farisv), reported and managed via Tidelift.

  • BIT-phpmailer-2020-363262024-03-06vendor · osvUS

    PHPMailer 6.1.8 through 6.4.0 allows object injection through Phar Deserialization via addAttachment with a UNC pathname. NOTE: this is similar to CVE-2018-19296, but arose because 6.1.8 fixed a functionality problem in which UNC pathnames were always considered unreadable by PHPMailer, even in safe contexts. As an unintended side effect, this fix eliminated the code that blocked addAttachment exploitation.

  • BIT-wordpress-2020-363262024-03-06vendor · osvUS

    PHPMailer 6.1.8 through 6.4.0 allows object injection through Phar Deserialization via addAttachment with a UNC pathname. NOTE: this is similar to CVE-2018-19296, but arose because 6.1.8 fixed a functionality problem in which UNC pathnames were always considered unreadable by PHPMailer, even in safe contexts. As an unintended side effect, this fix eliminated the code that blocked addAttachment exploitation.

  • BIT-wordpress-multisite-2020-363262024-03-06vendor · osvUS

    PHPMailer 6.1.8 through 6.4.0 allows object injection through Phar Deserialization via addAttachment with a UNC pathname. NOTE: this is similar to CVE-2018-19296, but arose because 6.1.8 fixed a functionality problem in which UNC pathnames were always considered unreadable by PHPMailer, even in safe contexts. As an unintended side effect, this fix eliminated the code that blocked addAttachment exploitation.

05

also known as (7)

Other names and identifiers for this entity.

06

sources

Which sources assert this record, and when.

published 2021-04-28modified 2026-06-17
08

references (16)

External citations — patches, advisories, analysis.

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