CVE-2024-51736: Command execution hijack on Windows with Process class in symfony/process

Severity: critical (CVSS 9.8 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2024-11-06 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-77

Description

Symphony process is a module for the Symphony PHP framework which executes commands in sub-processes. On Windows, when an executable file named `cmd.exe` is located in the current working directory it will be called by the `Process` class when preparing command arguments, leading to possible hijacking. This issue has been addressed in release versions 5.4.46, 6.4.14, and 7.1.7. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.

Affected products

symfony: before 5.4.46; from 6.0.0 before 6.4.14; from 7.0.0 before 7.1.7 — fixed in 5.4.46, 6.4.14, 7.1.7
Packagist Symfony/Process: before 5.4.46; from 6.0.0 before 6.4.14; from 7.0.0 before 7.1.7; 2.0.4, 2.0.5, 2.0.6, 2.0.7, v2.0.10, v2.0.12 (+550) — fixed in 5.4.46, 6.4.14, 7.1.7
Packagist Symfony/Symfony: before 5.4.46; from 6.0.0 before 6.4.14; from 7.0.0 before 7.1.7; 2.0.4, 2.0.5, 2.0.6, 2.0.7, v2.0.10, v2.0.11 (+608) — fixed in 5.4.46, 6.4.14, 7.1.7

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: symfony 5.4.46, 6.4.14, 7.1.7; Packagist Symfony/Process 5.4.46, 6.4.14, 7.1.7; Packagist Symfony/Symfony 5.4.46, 6.4.14, 7.1.7. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

Get alerted when CVE-2024-51736 or the next vulnerability affects your stack