ID: IRCNE2012051492
Date: 2012-05-08
According to "computerworld", the PHP Group plans to release new versions of the PHP processor on Tuesday in order to patch two publicly known critical remote code execution vulnerabilities, one of which was improperly addressed in a May 3 update.
One of the vulnerabilities is known as CVE-2012-1823 and is located in php-cgi, a component that allows PHP to run in a Common Gateway Interface (CGI) configuration. It was discovered and reported privately to the PHP Group in mid-January by a team of computer security enthusiasts called De Eindbazen.
The bug allows for URL query strings that contain the "-" character to be interpreted by the php-cgi binary as command line switches, such as -s, -d, -c. The vulnerability can be exploited to disclose source code from PHP scripts or to remotely execute arbitrary code on vulnerable systems.
On May 3, the PHP Group released PHP 5.3.12 and PHP 5.4.2 as emergency updates in order to address the remote code execution flaw after technical details about it were accidentally made public.
However, shortly afterward, Stefan Esser, the creator of the Suhosin PHP security extension, and other security experts pointed out via Twitter that the CVE-2012-1823 fix included in PHP 5.3.12 and PHP 5.4.2 can easily be bypassed.
The PHP Group acknowledged the ineffectiveness of its original patch on Sunday and announced plans to release new updates on Tuesday. "These [upcoming] releases will fix the CGI flaw and another CGI-related issue in apache_request_header (5.4 only)," the PHP developers wrote.
The second issue to be patched on Tuesday, which involves the apache_request_header, is a heap buffer overflow vulnerability that can also be exploited for remote code execution, Georg Wicherski, the malware analyst and exploit developer who discovered it, said Friday on Twitter.
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