CVE-2026-45185 (Dead.Letter): Unauthenticated RCE in Exim Discovered by XBOW
By
FedericoKirschbaumAndresLuksenberg
19d ago· 47 min readenInsight
100/100
Golden Brown
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The bagel they save for the regulars. Don't skim, savour.
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Summary
XBOW discovered CVE-2026-45185, a critical unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability in Exim mail server. The article details the discovery process, technical exploitation, and how XBOW used the disclosure window to test both human-led and autonomous exploit development approaches. It's presented as a narrative blending technical vulnerability research with a story-like account of the discovery journey.
Key quotes
· 3 pulledWhat follows is, before anything else, a story. One of those old, well-worn ones. A story of encounters and misencounters, of broken hearts and quiet betrayals, of loves once thought to be forever turning out to be something else entirely.
These pages are the by-product of the early days of testing a product we are building. A product focused on finding and detecting vulnerabilities in native code.
So what you are about to read is two things at once. It is the technical account of a vulnerability discovery and exploitation journey.
XBOW discovered CVE-2026-45185, a critical unauthenticated RCE in Exim, and used the disclosure window to test how far human and autonomous exploit development could go.
