What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2015-10141: Xdebug Remote Debugger Unauthenticated OS Command Execution

• Severity: critical (CVSS 9.3 v4.0)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 7.1% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: yes
• Published: 2025-07-23 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-78

Description

An unauthenticated OS command injection vulnerability exists within Xdebug versions 2.5.5 and earlier, a PHP debugging extension developed by Derick Rethans. When remote debugging is enabled, Xdebug listens on port 9000 and accepts debugger protocol commands without authentication. An attacker can send a crafted eval command over this interface to execute arbitrary PHP code, which may invoke system-level functions such as system() or passthru(). This results in full compromise of the host under the privileges of the web server user.

Affected products

• Xdebug: through 2.5.5

References

• http://web.archive.org/web/20231226215418/https://paper.seebug.org/397/
• https://kirtixs.com/blog/2015/11/13/xpwn-exploiting-xdebug-enabled-servers/
• https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/44568
• https://www.fortiguard.com/encyclopedia/ips/46000
• https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/xdebug-remote-debugger-unauth-os-command-execution
• https://xdebug.org/

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