CVE-2009-4018

Severity: high (CVSS 7.5 v2.0)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 11.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: yes
Published: 2009-11-29 · updated 2026-06-16
Weakness: CWE-264

Description

The proc_open function in ext/standard/proc_open.c in PHP before 5.2.11 and 5.3.x before 5.3.1 does not enforce the (1) safe_mode_allowed_env_vars and (2) safe_mode_protected_env_vars directives, which allows context-dependent attackers to execute programs with an arbitrary environment via the env parameter, as demonstrated by a crafted value of the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable.

Affected products

PHP: through 5.2.10; 1.0, 2.0, 2.0b10, 3.0, 3.0.1, 3.0.2 (+103)

References

http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=49026
http://marc.info/?l=bugtraq&m=127680701405735&w=2
http://marc.info/?l=oss-security&m=125886770008678&w=2
http://marc.info/?l=oss-security&m=125897935330618&w=2
http://secunia.com/advisories/40262
http://secunia.com/advisories/41480
http://secunia.com/advisories/41490
http://svn.php.net/viewvc/?view=revision&revision=286360
http://svn.php.net/viewvc/php/php-src/branches/PHP_5_2/ext/standard/proc_open.c?r1=286360&r2=286359&pathrev=286360
http://svn.php.net/viewvc/php/php-src/branches/PHP_5_3/ext/standard/proc_open.c?r1=286360&r2=286359&pathrev=286360
http://www.itrc.hp.com/service/cki/docDisplay.do?docId=emr_na-c02512995
http://www.mandriva.com/security/advisories?name=MDVSA-2009:303

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