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    CVE-2016-1531

    Exim before 4.86.2, when installed setuid root, allows local users to gain privileges via the perl_startup argument.

    Published:Mar 2, 2016
    Last Modified:Apr 12, 2025
    EPS:Apr 7, 2016
    EPSS Score:0.67649
    CVSS Score:7

    Affected Products

    Vendor
    Exim
    Product
    Exim

    Exploits

    http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/136124/Exim-4.84-3-Local-Root-Privilege-Escalation.htmlhttps://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/39535/http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/136124/Exim-4.84-3-Local-Root-Privilege-Escalation.htmlhttps://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/39535/https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/39702https://github.com/h3x0v3rl0rd/CVE-2016-1531https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/39535https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/39549

    Common Weakness Enumeration

    CWE-426 Untrusted Search Path

    Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)

    CAPEC-38 Leveraging/Manipulating Configuration File Search Paths

    Related CVEs

    CVE-2026-66141 (CVSS 7.4) — Exim before 4.99.5 allows .forward privilege escalation because force_command for a pipe transport is mishandl…
    CVE-2026-66140 (CVSS 8.4) — Exim before 4.99.5 allows directory traversal to access files outside of the spool area, and consequently gain…
    CVE-2026-48840 (CVSS 5.3) — Exim 4.88 before 4.99.4, in some proxy configurations, mishandles certain short payloads, leading to disclosur…
    CVE-2026-45185 (CVSS 9.8) — Exim before 4.99.3, in certain GnuTLS configurations, has a remotely reachable use-after-free in the BDAT body…
    CVE-2026-40686 (CVSS 3.7) — In Exim before 4.99.2, when utf8 operators are enabled, there is an out-of-bounds read if large UTF-8 trailing…
    CVE-2026-40684 (CVSS 5.9) — In Exim before 4.99.2, on systems using musl libc (not glibc), an attacker can crash the connection instance w…
    CVE-2026-40687 (CVSS 4.8) — In Exim before 4.99.2, when the SPA authentication driver is used with an adversarial SPA resource, there can …
    CVE-2026-40685 (CVSS 6.5) — In Exim before 4.99.2, when JSON lookup is enabled, an out-of-bounds heap write can occur when a JSON operator…
    CVE-2025-67896 (CVSS 7) — Exim before 4.99.1, with certain non-default rate-limit configurations, allows a remote heap-based buffer over…
    CVE-2025-53881 (CVSS 6.9) — A UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following vulnerability in logrotate config in the exim package allowed privile…

    References

    http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2016-03/msg00026.html
    http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/136124/Exim-4.84-3-Local-Root-Privilege-Escalation.html
    http://www.debian.org/security/2016/dsa-3517
    http://www.exim.org/static/doc/CVE-2016-1531.txt
    http://www.rapid7.com/db/modules/exploit/unix/local/exim_perl_startup
    http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1035512
    http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-2933-1
    https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/39535/
    https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/39549/
    https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/39702/
    http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2016-03/msg00026.html
    http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/136124/Exim-4.84-3-Local-Root-Privilege-Escalation.html
    http://www.debian.org/security/2016/dsa-3517
    http://www.exim.org/static/doc/CVE-2016-1531.txt
    http://www.rapid7.com/db/modules/exploit/unix/local/exim_perl_startup
    http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1035512
    http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-2933-1
    https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/39535/
    https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/39549/
    https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/39702/

    Common Vulnerability Scoring System

    Attack Vector
    Network
    Adjacent
    Local
    Physical
    Privileges Required
    None
    Low
    High
    User Interaction
    None
    Required
    Scope
    Unchanged
    Changed
    Confidentiality
    None
    Low
    High
    Integrity
    None
    Low
    High
    Availability
    None
    Low
    High