CVE-2012-1823
Published 2012-05-11 · Updated 2026-06-16 · Source cret@cert.org
Summary
CVE-2012-1823 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) vulnerability in PHP PHP. CISA added it to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on March 25, 2022, which means exploitation in the wild has been confirmed; US federal agencies had to remediate it by April 15, 2022. CISA does not currently list it as used in ransomware campaigns. PHP has 3 vulnerabilities in the KEV catalog, 1 of them linked to ransomware.
All 3 known-exploited PHP vulnerabilities →Description
sapi/cgi/cgi_main.c in PHP before 5.3.12 and 5.4.x before 5.4.2, when configured as a CGI script (aka php-cgi), does not properly handle query strings that lack an = (equals sign) character, which allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code by placing command-line options in the query string, related to lack of skipping a certain php_getopt for the 'd' case.
CVSS vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CISA Known-Exploited Vulnerability
Product: PHP — PHP
Name: PHP-CGI Query String Parameter Vulnerability
Date added: 2022-03-25 · Due: 2022-04-15
Required action: Apply updates per vendor instructions.
References
- http://eindbazen.net/2012/05/php-cgi-advisory-cve-2012-1823/
- http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c03360041
- http://lists.apple.com/archives/security-announce/2012/Sep/msg00004.html
- http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2012-05/msg00002.html
- http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2012-05/msg00007.html
- http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2012-05/msg00011.html
- http://marc.info/?l=bugtraq&m=134012830914727&w=2
- http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2012-0546.html

