Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
-
AccessConnect to Exim SMTP over network
-
DeliveryBegin message and trigger DATA-phase rejection
-
ExploitInject crafted post-rejection data
-
ExecutionDesynchronize message boundary parsing
-
ImpactDeliver smuggled spoofed message bypassing sender auth
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A05:2025 - Injection
ASVS 5.0
V1 - Encoding and Sanitization CRLF sequence sanitization
|
| Exploitation Conditions | Requires a network-reachable Exim SMTP service before version 4.100.1 accepting connections (typical for a mail relay/MTA), and an attacker able to first trigger a rejection during DATA processing and then send precisely crafted follow-on data that desynchronizes message-boundary parsing. Exploitation is limited by high attack complexity (the crafted timing/data around a DATA-phase rejection must be reliable) and by dependence on how a downstream/receiving mail system interprets the smuggled boundary; the real-world payoff (spoofing that bypasses SPF/DKIM/DMARC) applies mainly where other systems trust this Exim host for sender authentication. No authentication is required (PR:N) and no user interaction is needed. |
| Impact | This is a moderate, integrity-focused issue rather than a top priority. The vendor CVSS 3.1 vector (AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:L/A:N, base 4.0) correctly captures the shape: network-reachable and unauthenticated (PR:N), but with high attack complexity (AC:H) because success depends on precisely crafted data injected after a rejection during DATA processing and on how a downstream/receiving system re-interprets the message boundary. Impact is limited to integrity (I:L, email spoofing/message injection) with no confidentiality or availability effect (C:N/A:N). There is no EPSS score, no CISA KEV listing, and no public exploit code identified at time of analysis, so this is 'no public exploit identified at time of analysis.' SMTP smuggling is a well-understood class publicly, which lowers the research barrier, but the AC:H mechanics and the lack of confidentiality/availability impact keep real-world urgency below the high-CVSS appliance flaws. No signals conflict: low base score, no EPSS/KEV/POC, and integrity-only impact are mutually consistent. Priority: patch to 4.100.1 as routine MTA hygiene, prioritized higher for internet-facing mail relays that other systems trust for sender authentication. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | A remote unauthenticated sender connects to an internet-facing Exim relay and, after triggering a rejection during the DATA phase, injects crafted continuation data that Exim and a downstream mail system interpret differently as message boundaries. The result is a 'smuggled' message that was never legitimately sent, enabling spoofed email that can slip past SPF/DKIM/DMARC alignment checks. No public proof-of-concept is currently identified, and the crafted-timing requirement (AC:H) makes reliable exploitation non-trivial. |
Get an e-mail when this CVE is exploited, patched or re-scored. Free account.
Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – Sep 19, 2026
SMTP smuggling in Exim before 4.100.1 allows a remote, unauthenticated attacker to desynchronize message boundaries so that a message a receiving system reconstructs does not match any message actually sent, by first provoking a rejection during DATA processing and then delivering crafted follow-on data. The assessed impact is integrity-only (CVSS 4.0, AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:L/A:N): no confidentiality or availability loss is expected, and successful abuse hinges on high attack complexity and on how downstream mail systems interpret the smuggled end-of-data boundary. The practical payoff is sender spoofing that can bypass SPF, DKIM, or DMARC alignment where other systems trust this Exim host as a relay, so it is a moderate, integrity-focused issue rather than a top priority; no public exploit has been identified at time of analysis.
RemediationAI
Vendor-released patch: upgrade to Exim 4.100.1, which is the first release in which the crafted post-rejection DATA handling documented in CVE-2026-94057 is corrected; administrators should schedule this upgrade ahead of lower-priority maintenance since no configuration change fully removes the underlying boundary-parsing behavior. Confirm the fix by checking the running binary version after upgrade and by re-testing a DATA-phase rejection followed by pipelined content against a staging relay, using the details in the Exim advisory at https://lists.exim.org/lurker/message/20260918.121220.0f87338e.en.html. Where immediate upgrade is not possible, compensating controls include restricting inbound SMTP on port 25 to known peer relays via firewall or ACL rules (trade-off: blocks legitimate mail from unlisted senders), enforcing strict end-of-data parsing and outbound boundary normalization on the downstream MTA that receives mail from the affected Exim host (trade-off: may reject or requeue malformed messages from other sources), and tightening DMARC policy on domains that trust this relay so that spoofed messages failing alignment are quarantined or rejected (trade-off: stricter policy can reject legitimate mail during alignment regressions). Note that these workarounds reduce exposure but do not eliminate the parsing mismatch, so upgrading to 4.100.1 remains the primary fix.
Affected VersionsENISA
Affected Packages
Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affects your stack
Affects 1 package in euvd
Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.
Technical ContextAI · show details
The root cause class is CWE-93, improper neutralization of CRLF sequences ('CRLF injection'), applied to the SMTP protocol's DATA phase. SMTP delimits a message body with a dot-stuffed end-of-data sequence (CRLF.CRLF); when a receiving MTA and a downstream/forwarding MTA disagree about where that terminator falls - for instance because the sender aborts or is rejected mid-DATA and then sends additional crafted lines - the two systems can parse two different messages from one transaction. This is the classic 'SMTP smuggling' pattern, where mismatched boundary parsing lets an attacker inject content that appears to originate from a trusted sender. CVE-2026-94057 specifically involves a rejection occurring during DATA processing followed by crafted data that the affected Exim version (before 4.100.1) mishandles, producing a received message with no corresponding sent message. Per the CPE cpe:2.3:a:exim:exim:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*, all Exim releases prior to 4.100.1 are in scope; the CVSS scope-change metric (S:C) reflects that exploitation affects components beyond the vulnerable MTA, namely the downstream mail systems that trust its boundary handling.
Know when Exim gets its next vulnerability
- Watch products and get an email when something new is published
- Check this CVE against your own stack and servers
- Exploit and PoC references, threat intelligence from 22 sources
No credit card · 7-day full trial
Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
Remote unauthenticated (AV:N/PR:N); AC:H for crafted post-rejection timing; scope change (S:C) as smuggling affects a downstream mail system; integrity-only (I:L), no confidentiality/availability impact.
Primary rating from Vendor (mitre).
CVSS VectorNVD
Lifecycle Timeline
3DescriptionNVD
Exim before 4.100.1 allows SMTP smuggling in which the received message does not match any sent message, and instead depends on crafted data sent after a rejection during DATA processing.
Threat Intelligence Overview
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
The receive_msg function in receive.c in the SMTP daemon in Exim 4.88 and 4.89 allows remote attackers to execute arbitr
The receive_msg function in receive.c in the SMTP daemon in Exim 4.88 and 4.89 allows remote attackers to cause a denial
Exim before 4.86.2, when installed setuid root, allows local users to gain privileges via the perl_startup argument. Rat
Exim mail server version 4.98 before 4.98.1 contains a remote SQL injection vulnerability when SQLite hints and ETRN ser
A flaw was found in Exim versions 4.87 to 4.91 (inclusive). Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.8), this vulnerability is re
Heap-based buffer overflow in the dkim_exim_query_dns_txt function in dkim.c in Exim 4.70 through 4.80, when DKIM suppor
Exim before 4.95 has a heap-based buffer overflow for the alias list in host_name_lookup in host.c when sender_host_name
Exim 4.92 through 4.92.2 allows remote code execution, a different vulnerability than CVE-2019-15846. Rated critical sev
An issue was discovered in the base64d function in the SMTP listener in Exim before 4.90.1. Rated critical severity (CVS
A UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following vulnerability in the packaging of exim in openSUSE Factory allows local attacke
Exim before 4.96 has an invalid free in pam_converse in auths/call_pam.c because store_free is not used after store_mall
Exim through 4.93 has an out-of-bounds read in the SPA authenticator that could result in SPA/NTLM authentication bypass
EUVD-2026-83615
GHSA-3mrg-v8x6-xfjw
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
Vulnrichment
VulDB
Exploit-DB