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CVE-2017-5615 cPanel CVE debrief

CVE-2017-5615 is a medium-severity issue affecting cPanel's cgiemail and cgiecho utilities. According to the NVD record and vendor advisory references, a remote attacker could inject HTTP headers by placing a newline character in the redirect location. Because the attack requires user interaction and can alter how a browser or intermediary handles the response, it can be used to manipulate redirects or response content in ways that may affect confidentiality and integrity.

Vendor
cPanel
Product
CVE-2017-5615
CVSS
MEDIUM 6.1
CISA KEV
Not listed in stored evidence
Original CVE published
2017-03-03
Original CVE updated
2026-05-13
Advisory published
2017-03-03
Advisory updated
2026-05-13

Who should care

Administrators and operators running cPanel installations that expose cgiemail or cgiecho, as well as security teams responsible for web-facing CGI applications and response-splitting defenses.

Technical summary

NVD classifies the issue with CVSS 3.0 AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N and lists CWE-601. The affected CPEs are cpanel:cgiecho and cpanel:cgiemail. The vulnerable behavior is an HTTP header injection path triggered through a newline character in a redirect location, allowing attacker-controlled response manipulation.

Defensive priority

Medium. Prioritize if cgiemail or cgiecho is deployed in any internet-facing or user-reachable environment, especially where redirects are accepted from request data.

Recommended defensive actions

  • Confirm whether cgiemail or cgiecho are installed and reachable in your cPanel environment.
  • Apply the vendor remediation guidance from the cPanel advisory and verify the affected components are updated or removed from exposure.
  • Audit redirect handling for newline and other response-splitting inputs in CGI applications.
  • Add server-side validation to reject control characters in redirect targets and related headers.
  • Review web server and application logs for suspicious redirect or header anomalies.
  • If the utilities are not required, disable or restrict access to reduce attack surface.

Evidence notes

This debrief is based on the NVD CVE record, which lists the affected cpe entries for cpanel:cgiecho and cpanel:cgiemail, and on the linked cPanel advisory and Openwall mailing list reference. The vulnerability description supplied with the CVE states that remote attackers can inject HTTP headers via a newline character in the redirect location. PublishedAt is 2017-03-03T15:59:00.993Z and ModifiedAt is 2026-05-13T00:24:29.033Z; those dates are used only as CVE timeline context.

Official resources

The CVE record was published on 2017-03-03T15:59:00.993Z and later modified on 2026-05-13T00:24:29.033Z. The linked references include an oss-security mailing list post dated 2017-01-28 and a cPanel vendor advisory.