The zend_alter_ini_entry function in PHP before 5.2.4 does not properly handle an interruption to the flow of execution triggered by a memory_limit violation, which has unknown impact and attack vectors.

It was discovered that the patch for CVE-2007-4659 could lead to regressions in some scenarios. The fix has been reverted for now, a revised update will be provided in a future PHP DSA.

For reference the original advisory below :

Several remote vulnerabilities have been discovered in PHP, a server-side, HTML-embedded scripting language. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project identifies the following problems :

  - CVE-2007-3799     It was discovered that the session_start() function     allowed the insertion of attributes into the session     cookie.

  - CVE-2007-3998     Mattias Bengtsson and Philip Olausson discovered that a     programming error in the implementation of the     wordwrap() function allowed denial of service through an     infinite loop.

  - CVE-2007-4658     Stanislav Malyshev discovered that a format string     vulnerability in the money_format() function could allow     the execution of arbitrary code.

  - CVE-2007-4659     Stefan Esser discovered that execution control flow     inside the zend_alter_ini_entry() function is handled     incorrectly in case of a memory limit violation.

  - CVE-2007-4660     Gerhard Wagner discovered an integer overflow inside the     chunk_split() function.

  - CVE-2007-5898     Rasmus Lerdorf discovered that incorrect parsing of     multibyte sequences may lead to disclosure of memory     contents.

  - CVE-2007-5899     It was discovered that the output_add_rewrite_var()     function could leak session ID information, resulting in     information disclosure.

This update also fixes two bugs from the PHP 5.2.4 release which don't have security impact according to the Debian PHP security policy (CVE-2007-4657 and CVE-2007-4662 ), but which are fixed nonetheless.

The remote host is affected by the vulnerability described in GLSA-200710-02 (PHP: Multiple vulnerabilities)

    Several vulnerabilities were found in PHP. Mattias Bengtsson and Philip     Olausson reported integer overflows in the gdImageCreate() and     gdImageCreateTrueColor() functions of the GD library which can cause     heap-based buffer overflows (CVE-2007-3996). Gerhard Wagner discovered     an integer overflow in the chunk_split() function that can lead to a     heap-based buffer overflow (CVE-2007-2872). Its incomplete fix caused     incorrect buffer size calculation due to precision loss, also resulting     in a possible heap-based buffer overflow (CVE-2007-4661 and     CVE-2007-4660). A buffer overflow in the sqlite_decode_binary() of the     SQLite extension found by Stefan Esser that was addressed in PHP 5.2.1     was not fixed correctly (CVE-2007-1887).
    Stefan Esser discovered an error in the zend_alter_ini_entry() function     handling a memory_limit violation (CVE-2007-4659). Stefan Esser also     discovered a flaw when handling interruptions with userspace error     handlers that can be exploited to read arbitrary heap memory     (CVE-2007-1883). Disclosure of sensitive memory can also be triggered     due to insufficient boundary checks in the strspn() and strcspn()     functions, an issue discovered by Mattias Bengtsson and Philip Olausson     (CVE-2007-4657)     Stefan Esser reported incorrect validation in the FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL     filter of the Filter extension allowing arbitrary email header     injection (CVE-2007-1900). NOTE: This CVE was referenced, but not fixed     in GLSA 200705-19.
    Stanislav Malyshev found an error with unknown impact in the     money_format() function when processing '%i' and '%n' tokens     (CVE-2007-4658). zatanzlatan reported a buffer overflow in the     php_openssl_make_REQ() function with unknown impact when providing a     manipulated SSL configuration file (CVE-2007-4662). Possible memory     corruption when trying to read EXIF data in exif_read_data() and     exif_thumbnail() occurred with unknown impact.
    Several vulnerabilities that allow bypassing of open_basedir and other     restrictions were reported, including the glob() function     (CVE-2007-4663), the session_save_path(), ini_set(), and error_log()     functions which can allow local command execution (CVE-2007-3378),     involving the readfile() function (CVE-2007-3007), via the Session     extension (CVE-2007-4652), via the MySQL extension (CVE-2007-3997) and     in the dl() function which allows loading extensions outside of the     specified directory (CVE-2007-4825).
    Multiple Denial of Service vulnerabilities were discovered, including a     long 'library' parameter in the dl() function (CVE-2007-4887), in     several iconv and xmlrpc functions (CVE-2007-4840 and CVE-2007-4783),     in the setlocale() function (CVE-2007-4784), in the glob() and     fnmatch() function (CVE-2007-4782 and CVE-2007-3806), a floating point     exception in the wordwrap() function (CVE-2007-3998), a stack     exhaustion via deeply nested arrays (CVE-2007-4670), an infinite loop     caused by a specially crafted PNG image in the png_read_info() function     of libpng (CVE-2007-2756) and several issues related to array     conversion.
  Impact :

    Remote attackers might be able to exploit these issues in PHP     applications making use of the affected functions, potentially     resulting in the execution of arbitrary code, Denial of Service,     execution of scripted contents in the context of the affected site,     security bypass or information leak.
  Workaround :

    There is no known workaround at this time.

The PHP development team reports :

Security Enhancements and Fixes in PHP 5.2.4 :

- Fixed a floating point exception inside wordwrap() (Reported by Mattias Bengtsson)

- Fixed several integer overflows inside the GD extension (Reported by Mattias Bengtsson)

- Fixed size calculation in chunk_split() (Reported by Gerhard Wagner)

- Fixed integer overflow in str[c]spn(). (Reported by Mattias Bengtsson)

- Fixed money_format() not to accept multiple %i or %n tokens.
(Reported by Stanislav Malyshev)

- Fixed zend_alter_ini_entry() memory_limit interruption vulnerability. (Reported by Stefan Esser)

- Fixed INFILE LOCAL option handling with MySQL extensions not to be allowed when open_basedir or safe_mode is active. (Reported by Mattias Bengtsson)

- Fixed session.save_path and error_log values to be checked against open_basedir and safe_mode (CVE-2007-3378) (Reported by Maksymilian Arciemowicz)

- Fixed a possible invalid read in glob() win32 implementation (CVE-2007-3806) (Reported by shinnai)

- Fixed a possible buffer overflow in php_openssl_make_REQ (Reported by zatanzlatan at hotbrev dot com)

- Fixed an open_basedir bypass inside glob() function (Reported by dr at peytz dot dk)

- Fixed a possible open_basedir bypass inside session extension when the session file is a symlink (Reported by c dot i dot morris at durham dot ac dot uk)

- Improved fix for MOPB-03-2007.

- Corrected fix for CVE-2007-2872.

According to its banner, the version of PHP installed on the remote host is older than 5.2.4.  Such versions may be affected by various issues, including but not limited to several overflows.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
29838	Debian DSA-1444-2 : php5 - several vulnerabilities	Nessus	Debian Local Security Checks	high
26942	GLSA-200710-02 : PHP: Multiple vulnerabilities	Nessus	Gentoo Local Security Checks	high
26038	FreeBSD : php -- multiple vulnerabilities (71d903fc-602d-11dc-898c-001921ab2fa4)	Nessus	FreeBSD Local Security Checks	high
25971	PHP < 5.2.4 Multiple Vulnerabilities	Nessus	CGI abuses	medium

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2007-4659

critical

Tenable Plugins

high

high

high

medium