CVE-2006-5178

Severity: medium (CVSS 6.2 v2.0)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.7% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: yes
Published: 2006-10-10 · updated 2026-06-16
Weakness: CWE-362

Description

Race condition in the symlink function in PHP 5.1.6 and earlier allows local users to bypass the open_basedir restriction by using a combination of symlink, mkdir, and unlink functions to change the file path after the open_basedir check and before the file is opened by the underlying system, as demonstrated by symlinking a symlink into a subdirectory, to point to a parent directory via .. (dot dot) sequences, and then unlinking the resulting symlink.

Affected products

PHP: through 5.1.6; 4.0, 4.0.1, 4.0.1-patch1, 4.0.1-patch2, 4.0.2, 4.0.3-patch1 (+47)

References

http://lists.grok.org.uk/pipermail/full-disclosure/2006-October/049850.html
http://secunia.com/advisories/22235
http://secunia.com/advisories/22424
http://securityreason.com/securityalert/1692
http://securitytracker.com/id?1016977
http://www.hardened-php.net/advisory_082006.132.html
http://www.mandriva.com/security/advisories?name=MDKSA-2006:185
http://www.neosecurityteam.net/index.php?action=advisories&id=26
http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/447649/100/0/threaded
http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/448020/100/0/threaded
http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/448953/100/0/threaded
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/20326

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