CVE-2016-10033
Actively exploited. CVE-2016-10033 is listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2025-07-07) — exploitation has been observed in the wild, and US federal agencies are required to remediate it under BOD 22-01. Treat patching as urgent.
Public exploit code is available. Proof-of-concept or working exploit code for CVE-2016-10033 is indexed in Metasploit, Exploit-DB, GitHub PoC and Nuclei. Expect opportunistic scanning and exploitation attempts — prioritize remediation.
PHPMailer contains a command injection vulnerability because it fails to sanitize user-supplied input. Specifically, this issue affects the 'mail()' function of 'class.phpmailer.php' script. An attacker can exploit this issue to execute arbitrary code within the context of the application. Failed exploit attempts will result in a denial-of-service condition.
CSIRTS triage
- What
- PHPMailer contains a command injection vulnerability that allows execution of arbitrary code within the context of the application.
- Who is affected
- Users of PHPMailer that utilize the 'mail()' function in 'class.phpmailer.php' are affected.
- Urgency
- This vulnerability is critical and has been exploited, making remediation urgent.
- Action
- Upgrade to the latest version of PHPMailer to fix this vulnerability.
AI-assisted analysis generated from the source advisory — verify against the original.
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Exploitation outlook
- Exploitation confirmedAlready exploited in the wild (CISA KEV) — the prediction phase is over. Patch now. Riskier than 100% of all EPSS-scored CVEs.
Exploit availability
Public exploit or proof-of-concept code for CVE-2016-10033 is indexed in these free datasets. Available exploit code raises real-world risk independent of the CVSS score.
- MetasploitA Metasploit Framework module targets this CVE — weaponized, point-and-click exploitation.look it up ↗
- Exploit-DBA public exploit is published in the Exploit-DB archive.look it up ↗
- GitHub PoCPublic proof-of-concept repositories on GitHub reference this CVE.look it up ↗
- NucleiA nuclei-templates detection/PoC template exists for this CVE.look it up ↗
Advisory coverage (1)
- criticalexploitedCVE-2016-10033: PHPMailer Command Injection Vulnerabilitycisa-kev · 2025-07-07
External references
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[](https://www.csirts.com/cve/CVE-2016-10033)