Exim 4.97
Exim 4.97
The Exim 4.97 reached end of service life on Jul 10, 2024 — Exim no longer ships security patches or fixes for it. Our third-party support keeps it safe to run: 24/7 engineers manage issues, remediate vulnerabilities, and help you maintain compliance.
24/7 engineers own your Exim 4.97 incidents end to end.
Mitigation and patch-around guidance when the vendor no longer ships fixes.
Controls evidence and documentation that keep auditors satisfied.
Specifications
- product
- exim
- release
- 4.97
- product Label
- Exim
- release Label
- 4.97
- codename
- lts
- latest Version
- 4.97.1
- release Date
- 2023-11-04
- maintained
- source Url
- https://endoflife.date/exim
Lifecycle Dates
- End of Service Life
- Jul 10, 2024
- Last OEM Support
- Jul 10, 2024
OEM vs. 3rd Party Support
See how third-party support compares to the vendor contract for Exim 4.97 — monitoring, break/fix, vulnerability work, operations and compliance, before and after EOSL.
| Feature | OEM Support | 3rd Party Support |
|---|---|---|
| Post-EOSL Support | ||
| Break/Fix Support | Until EOSL | |
| 24/7 Monitoring | ||
| Vulnerability Scanning & Remediation | ||
| Managed Operations | ||
| Procedure & Configuration Review | ||
| Compliance & Audit Documentation | Limited | |
| Discounted Migration to Other Platforms |
Why Choose 3rd Party Support for Exim 4.97?
Vulnerability Remediation
Scanning, mitigation and patch-around guidance for Exim 4.97 when the vendor no longer ships fixes.
Compliance Maintenance
Procedure review, controls evidence and the documentation auditors ask for — maintained continuously, not scrambled at audit time.
24/7 Expert Support
Engineers who know this release monitor, manage and fix issues around the clock — break/fix to managed operations.
Exim 4.97 Support: Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Exim 4.97 still supported?
Exim ended support for the Exim 4.97 on Jul 10, 2024 — no more patches or fixes from the vendor. Third-party support keeps it covered: our engineers manage issues, remediate vulnerabilities, and help you maintain compliance for as long as you run it.
When is the Exim 4.97 end of service life (EOSL) date?
Exim lists the end of service life for the Exim 4.97 as Jul 10, 2024.
Can I keep using the Exim 4.97 after its EOSL date?
Yes. EOSL means Exim stops issuing patches and support — the software itself keeps running. Third-party support covers it from there: issue management, security vulnerability remediation, and the compliance documentation auditors ask for, for as long as you choose to run it.
How much does third-party support for the Exim 4.97 cost?
Typically 40-70% below the OEM maintenance renewal price. Exact pricing depends on quantity, service level and location — request a quote and we respond within 24 hours.
Known Vulnerabilities Affecting Exim 4.97
12 published CVEs affect the Exim 4.97, including 5 rated critical or high severity. Exim no longer ships security patches for this release — our engineers provide mitigation guidance, workarounds and hardening support.
| CVE | Severity | CVSS | Published | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVE-2026-45185 | CRITICAL | 9.8 | May 12, 2026 | Exim before 4.99.3, in certain GnuTLS configurations, has a remotely reachable use-after-free in the BDAT body parsing path. It is triggered when a client sends a TLS close_notify mid-body during a CHUNKING transfer, followed by a final cleartext byte on the same TCP connection. This can lead to heap corruption. An unauthenticated network attacker exploiting this vulnerability could execute arbitrary code. |
| CVE-2026-66140 | HIGH | 8.4 | Jul 24, 2026 | Exim before 4.99.5 allows directory traversal to access files outside of the spool area, and consequently gain privileges, because arguments related to queue-name are mishandled. |
| CVE-2025-30232 | HIGH | 8.1 | Mar 28, 2025 | A use-after-free in Exim 4.96 through 4.98.1 could allow users (with command-line access) to escalate privileges. |
| CVE-2026-66141 | HIGH | 7.4 | Jul 24, 2026 | Exim before 4.99.5 allows .forward privilege escalation because force_command for a pipe transport is mishandled. |
| CVE-2025-67896 | HIGH | 7.0 | Dec 14, 2025 | Exim before 4.99.1, with certain non-default rate-limit configurations, allows a remote heap-based buffer overflow because database records are cast directly to internal structures without validation. |
| CVE-2026-40685 | MEDIUM | 6.5 | Apr 30, 2026 | In Exim before 4.99.2, when JSON lookup is enabled, an out-of-bounds heap write can occur when a JSON operator encounters malformed JSON in an untrusted header, because of an incorrect implementation of \ skipping. |
| CVE-2026-40684 | MEDIUM | 5.9 | Apr 30, 2026 | In Exim before 4.99.2, on systems using musl libc (not glibc), an attacker can crash the connection instance when malformed DNS data is present in PTR records. This is caused by a dn_expand oddity in octal printing. |
| CVE-2024-39929 | MEDIUM | 5.4 | Jul 4, 2024 | Exim through 4.97.1 misparses a multiline RFC 2231 header filename, and thus remote attackers can bypass a $mime_filename extension-blocking protection mechanism, and potentially deliver executable attachments to the mailboxes of end users. |
| CVE-2026-48840 | MEDIUM | 5.3 | May 30, 2026 | Exim 4.88 before 4.99.4, in some proxy configurations, mishandles certain short payloads, leading to disclosure of uninitialized stack memory values to a client. |
| CVE-2023-51766 | MEDIUM | 5.3 | Dec 24, 2023 | Exim before 4.97.1 allows SMTP smuggling in certain PIPELINING/CHUNKING configurations. Remote attackers can use a published exploitation technique to inject e-mail messages with a spoofed MAIL FROM address, allowing bypass of an SPF protection mechanism. This occurs because Exim supports <LF>.<CR><LF> but some other popular e-mail servers do not. |
| CVE-2026-40687 | MEDIUM | 4.8 | Apr 30, 2026 | In Exim before 4.99.2, when the SPA authentication driver is used with an adversarial SPA resource, there can be an out-of-bounds write that crashes the connection instance, or erroneous data processing that divulges data from uninitialized heap memory. |
| CVE-2026-40686 | LOW | 3.7 | Apr 30, 2026 | In Exim before 4.99.2, when utf8 operators are enabled, there is an out-of-bounds read if large UTF-8 trailing characters are present (malformed UTF-8 header data). Information might be divulged within an error message produced during handling of an unrelated e-mail message. |