CVE-2020-7247

9.8

CVSS
Critical

PUBLISHED

smtp_mailaddr in smtp_session.c in OpenSMTPD 6.6, as used in OpenBSD 6.6 and other products, allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands...

Exploited in the wild Remote Low complexity No user interaction

Vendor: OpenBSD
Product: OpenSMTPD
Published: Jan 29, 2020
EPSS: —

Description

smtp_mailaddr in smtp_session.c in OpenSMTPD 6.6, as used in OpenBSD 6.6 and other products, allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands as root via a crafted SMTP session, as demonstrated by shell metacharacters in a MAIL FROM field. This affects the "uncommented" default configuration. The issue exists because of an incorrect return value upon failure of input validation.

cisa nuclei_scanner metasploit

CVSS scores

CVSS v3.1 9.8 Critical

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

CVSS v2.0 10.0

AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Exploitation status

Exploited in the wild

Recorded 2022-03-25 00:00:00 UTC · Source

SSVC decision points

Exploitation: active
Automatable: Yes
Technical impact: total

References

Known exploited vulnerability sources

Catalogues that list this CVE as a known exploited vulnerability.

Source	Added
CISA	Mar 25, 2022

Scanner integrations

Scanner	Reference	Detected
Metasploit	https://github.com/rapid7/metasploit-framework/blob/master/modules/exploits/unix/smtp/opensmtpd_mail_from_rce.rb	Apr 28, 2025
Nuclei	https://github.com/projectdiscovery/nuclei-templates/blob/main/javascript/cves/2020/CVE-2020-7247.yaml	Apr 25, 2025

Potential proof of concepts

These PoCs are unverified and could contain malware. Use at your own risk.

opensmtpd_mail_from_rce

metasploit · Created Unknown

Metasploit module for CVE-2020-7247

SimonSchoeni/CVE-2020-7247-POC

github · Created 2021-11-26 17:28:56 UTC · 2 stars

Proof of concept for CVE-2020-7247 for educational purposes.

f4T1H21/CVE-2020-7247

github · Created 2021-06-19 07:34:42 UTC · 2 stars

PoC exploit for CVE-2020-7247 OpenSMTPD 6.4.0 < 6.6.1 Remote Code Execution

bytescrappers/CVE-2020-7247

github · Created 2021-06-02 12:02:33 UTC · 0 stars

This vulnerability exists in OpenBSD’s mail server OpenSMTPD’s “smtp_mailaddr()” function, and affects OpenBSD version 6.6. This allows an attacker to execute arbitrary shell commands like “sleep 66” as root user

QTranspose/CVE-2020-7247-exploit

github · Created 2021-02-13 06:57:47 UTC · 11 stars

OpenSMTPD 6.4.0 - 6.6.1 Remote Code Execution PoC exploit

r0lh/CVE-2020-7247

github · Created 2020-02-18 10:52:38 UTC · 3 stars

Proof Of Concept Exploit for CVE-2020-7247 (Remote Execution on OpenSMTPD < 6.6.2

Vulnerability detail