Threats / Exim / CVE-2010-4345
CVE-2010-4345
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-06-22
Exim vulnerability
Exim allows local users to escalate privileges by specifying an alternate configuration file containing arbitrary commands executed with elevated permissions.
Verdict
Today item — known-exploited.
Local privilege escalation in Exim through malicious configuration file directives. An attacker with local access to the exim user account can execute arbitrary commands with higher privileges, compromising system integrity.
01
Is it exploitable?
— the evidence, ranked above the scoreReported exploitation
2 independent public reports of in-the-wild exploitation are cataloged.Distinct reporting sources (vendor, incident response, government); open them for the underlying claims.
Exploited in the wild
Listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2022-03-25).
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.17794 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
Affected: Exim, Exim. Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.
Weakness (CWE)
Mapped to CWE-264 Permissions/Privileges/Access Control — weakness family: Authorization / access control.CWE assignment from the public NVD record; the weakness class drives how the flaw is exploited.
02
Who’s exploiting it?
— attribution turns risk into urgencyAttribution not established
No confirmed (advisory-backed) threat-actor attribution is established for this record. Absence of a named actor is not absence of compromise — see Coverage & confidence.
03
Why it matters
— the attack path, told twice: adversary, then board1
Front door — unauthenticated access narrative 1
Attacker
I gain local access to the exim user account on the target system.
Business
An insider or compromised account provides initial foothold on mail infrastructure.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I create or modify an alternate Exim configuration file with directives containing arbitrary shell commands.
Business
Attacker establishes persistence mechanism within mail system configuration.
3
Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3
Attacker
I invoke Exim with the malicious configuration file, causing it to execute my embedded commands with elevated privileges.
Business
Privilege escalation occurs, granting attacker root or system-level access to the mail server.
4
Data at risk — exfiltration narrative 4
Attacker
I maintain control of the system with elevated privileges, enabling further lateral movement and data exfiltration.
Business
Complete compromise of mail infrastructure, risking exposure of sensitive communications and system-wide breach.
04
What to do
— defensible action- Remediate per the vendor advisory — confirm the fixed build for your version and verify exposure.1
Say it to the boardA vulnerability with this evidence profile is a defensible budget line, not a backlog ticket — fund the change against the proof above.
05