CRLF injection vulnerability in the mb_send_mail function in PHP before 5.1.0 might allow remote attackers to inject arbitrary e-mail headers via line feeds (LF) in the "To" address argument.

According to its banner, the version of PHP 5.x installed on the remote host is older than 5.1.0.  Such versions may be affected by multiple vulnerabilities :

  - A cross-site scripting vulnerability exists in     phpinfo().

  - Multiple safe_mode/open_basedir bypass vulnerabilities     exist in ext/curl and ext/gd.

  - It is possible to overwrite $GLOBALS due to an issue in     file upload handling, extract(), and     import_request_variables().

  - An issue exists when a request is terminated due to     memory_limit constraints during certain parse_str()     calls, which could lead to register globals being turned     on.

  - An issue exists with trailing slashes in allowed     basedirs.

  - An issue exists with calling virtual() on Apache 2, which     allows an attacker to bypass certain configuration     directives like safe_mode or open_basedir.

  - A possible header injection exists in the mb_send_mail()     function.
    
  - The apache2handler SAPI in the Apache module allows     attackers to cause a denial of service.

Updated PHP packages that fix multiple security issues are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and 4.

This update has been rated as having moderate security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team.

PHP is an HTML-embedded scripting language commonly used with the Apache HTTP Web server.

The phpinfo() PHP function did not properly sanitize long strings. An attacker could use this to perform cross-site scripting attacks against sites that have publicly-available PHP scripts that call phpinfo(). (CVE-2006-0996)

The html_entity_decode() PHP function was found to not be binary safe.
An attacker could use this flaw to disclose a certain part of the memory. In order for this issue to be exploitable the target site would need to have a PHP script which called the 'html_entity_decode()' function with untrusted input from the user and displayed the result. (CVE-2006-1490)

The error handling output was found to not properly escape HTML output in certain cases. An attacker could use this flaw to perform cross-site scripting attacks against sites where both display_errors and html_errors are enabled. (CVE-2006-0208)

An input validation error was found in the 'mb_send_mail()' function.
An attacker could use this flaw to inject arbitrary headers in a mail sent via a script calling the 'mb_send_mail()' function where the 'To' parameter can be controlled by the attacker. (CVE-2005-3883)

A buffer overflow flaw was discovered in uw-imap, the University of Washington's IMAP Server. php-imap is compiled against the static c-client libraries from imap and therefore needed to be recompiled against the fixed version. This issue only affected Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3. (CVE-2005-2933).

Users of PHP should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches that resolve these issues.

The remote Redhat Enterprise Linux 4 host has packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the RHSA-2006:0276 advisory.

    PHP is an HTML-embedded scripting language commonly used with the Apache     HTTP Web server.

    The phpinfo() PHP function did not properly sanitize long strings.  An     attacker could use this to perform cross-site scripting attacks against     sites that have publicly-available PHP scripts that call phpinfo().
    (CVE-2006-0996)

    The html_entity_decode() PHP function was found to not be binary safe. An     attacker could use this flaw to disclose a certain part of the memory.  In     order for this issue to be exploitable the target site would need to have a     PHP script which called the html_entity_decode() function with untrusted     input from the user and displayed the result.  (CVE-2006-1490)

    The error handling output was found to not properly escape HTML output in     certain cases.  An attacker could use this flaw to perform cross-site     scripting attacks against sites where both display_errors and html_errors     are enabled.  (CVE-2006-0208)

    An input validation error was found in the mb_send_mail() function.  An     attacker could use this flaw to inject arbitrary headers in a mail sent via     a script calling the mb_send_mail() function where the To parameter can     be controlled by the attacker.  (CVE-2005-3883)

    A buffer overflow flaw was discovered in uw-imap, the University of     Washington's IMAP Server.  php-imap is compiled against the static c-client     libraries from imap and therefore needed to be recompiled against the fixed     version.  This issue only affected Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.
    (CVE-2005-2933).

    Users of PHP should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain     backported patches that resolve these issues.

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

Eric Romang discovered a local Denial of Service vulnerability in the handling of the 'session.save_path' parameter in PHP's Apache 2.0 module. By setting this parameter to an invalid value in an .htaccess file, a local user could crash the Apache server. (CVE-2005-3319)

A Denial of Service flaw was found in the EXIF module. By sending an image with specially crafted EXIF data to a PHP program that automatically evaluates them (e. g. a web gallery), a remote attacker could cause an infinite recursion in the PHP interpreter, which caused the web server to crash. (CVE-2005-3353)

Stefan Esser reported a Cross Site Scripting vulnerability in the phpinfo() function. By tricking a user into retrieving a specially crafted URL to a PHP page that exposes phpinfo(), a remote attacker could inject arbitrary HTML or web script into the output page and possibly steal private data like cookies or session identifiers.
(CVE-2005-3388)

Stefan Esser discovered a vulnerability of the parse_str() function when it is called with just one argument. By calling such programs with specially crafted parameters, a remote attacker could enable the 'register_globals' option which is normally turned off for security reasons. Once this option is enabled, the remote attacker could exploit other security flaws of PHP programs which are normally protected by 'register_globals' being deactivated. (CVE-2005-3389)

Stefan Esser discovered that a remote attacker could overwrite the $GLOBALS array in PHP programs that allow file uploads and run with 'register_globals' enabled. Depending on the particular application, this can lead to unexpected vulnerabilities. (CVE-2005-3390)

The 'gd' image processing and cURL modules did not properly check processed file names against the 'open_basedir' and 'safe_mode' restrictions, which could be exploited to circumvent these limitations. (CVE-2005-3391)

Another bypass of the 'open_basedir' and 'safe_mode' restrictions was found in virtual() function. A local attacker could exploit this to circumvent these restrictions with specially crafted PHP INI files when virtual Apache 2.0 hosts are used. (CVE-2005-3392)

The mb_send_mail() function did not properly check its arguments for invalid embedded line breaks. By setting the 'To:' field of an email to a specially crafted value in a PHP web mail application, a remote attacker could inject arbitrary headers into the sent email.
(CVE-2005-3883).

Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Ubuntu security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.

A CRLF injection vulnerability in the mb_send_mail function in PHP before 5.1.0 might allow remote attackers to inject arbitrary e-mail headers via line feeds (LF) in the 'To' address argument, when using sendmail as the MTA (mail transfer agent).

The updated packages have been patched to address this issue. Once the new packages have been installed, you will need to restart your Apache server using 'service httpd restart' in order for the new packages to take effect.

The remote host is running a version of PHP that is older than 5.0.6. This version has a flaw where remote attackers can reenable the 'register_globals' parameter.  In addition, a remote attacker may be able to overwrite the 'GLOBAL' variable.  This may lead to another more serious exploitation.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
17711	PHP 5.x < 5.1.0 Multiple Vulnerabilities	Nessus	CGI abuses	medium
21897	CentOS 3 / 4 : php (CESA-2006:0276)	Nessus	CentOS Local Security Checks	high
21287	RHEL 4 : php (RHSA-2006:0276)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	medium
20776	Ubuntu 4.10 / 5.04 / 5.10 : php4, php5 vulnerabilities (USN-232-1)	Nessus	Ubuntu Local Security Checks	high
20469	Mandrake Linux Security Advisory : php (MDKSA-2005:238)	Nessus	Mandriva Local Security Checks	medium
801113	PHP < 5.0.6 GLOBAL Variable Overwrite	Log Correlation Engine	Web Servers	high

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2005-3883

critical

Tenable Plugins

medium

high

medium

high

medium

high