PHP: Multiple vulnerabilities — GLSA 200412-14

Several vulnerabilities were found and fixed in PHP, ranging from an information leak and a safe_mode restriction bypass to a potential remote execution of arbitrary code.

Affected packages

Package 	dev-php/php on all architectures
Affected versions 	< 4.3.10
Unaffected versions 	>= 4.3.10
Package 	dev-php/mod_php on all architectures
Affected versions 	< 4.3.10
Unaffected versions 	>= 4.3.10
Package 	dev-php/php-cgi on all architectures
Affected versions 	< 4.3.10
Unaffected versions 	>= 4.3.10

Background

PHP is a general-purpose scripting language widely used to develop web-based applications. It can run inside a web server using the mod_php module or the CGI version of PHP, or can run stand-alone in a CLI.

Description

Stefan Esser and Marcus Boerger reported several different issues in the unserialize() function, including serious exploitable bugs in the way it handles negative references (CAN-2004-1019).

Stefan Esser also discovered that the pack() and unpack() functions are subject to integer overflows that can lead to a heap buffer overflow and a heap information leak. Finally, he found that the way multithreaded PHP handles safe_mode_exec_dir restrictions can be bypassed, and that various path truncation issues also allow to bypass path and safe_mode restrictions.

Ilia Alshanetsky found a stack overflow issue in the exif_read_data() function (CAN-2004-1065). Finally, Daniel Fabian found that addslashes and magic_quotes_gpc do not properly escape null characters and that magic_quotes_gpc contains a bug that could lead to one level directory traversal.

Impact

These issues could be exploited by a remote attacker to retrieve web server heap information, bypass safe_mode or path restrictions and potentially execute arbitrary code with the rights of the web server running a PHP application.

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All PHP users should upgrade to the latest version:

 # emerge --sync
 # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=dev-php/php-4.3.10"

All mod_php users should upgrade to the latest version:

 # emerge --sync
 # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=dev-php/mod_php-4.3.10"

All php-cgi users should upgrade to the latest version:

 # emerge --sync
 # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=dev-php/php-cgi-4.3.10"

References

    PHP 4.3.10 Release Announcement
    Hardened-PHP Security Advisory
    SEC Consult Advisory
    CAN-2004-1019
    CAN-2004-1020
    CVE-2004-1063
    CVE-2004-1064
    CVE-2004-1065