USN-1437-1: PHP vulnerability
Ubuntu Security Notice USN-1437-1
4th May, 2012
php5 vulnerability
A security issue affects these releases of Ubuntu and its derivatives:
- Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
- Ubuntu 11.10
- Ubuntu 11.04
- Ubuntu 10.04 LTS
- Ubuntu 8.04 LTS
Summary
Standalone PHP CGI scripts could be made to execute arbitrary code with the privilege of the web server.
Software description
- php5 - HTML-embedded scripting language interpreter
Details
It was discovered that PHP, when used as a stand alone CGI processor
for the Apache Web Server, did not properly parse and filter query
strings. This could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code
running with the privilege of the web server. Configurations using
mod_php5 and FastCGI were not vulnerable.
This update addresses the issue when the PHP CGI interpreter
is configured using mod_cgi and mod_actions as described in
/usr/share/doc/php5-cgi/README.Debian.gz; however, if an alternate
configuration is used to enable PHP CGI processing, it should be
reviewed to ensure that command line arguments cannot be passed to
the PHP interpreter. Please see CVE-2012-2311 for more details and
potential mitigation approaches.
Update instructions
The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package version:
- Ubuntu 12.04 LTS:
- php5-cgi 5.3.10-1ubuntu3.1
- Ubuntu 11.10:
- php5-cgi 5.3.6-13ubuntu3.7
- Ubuntu 11.04:
- php5-cgi 5.3.5-1ubuntu7.8
- Ubuntu 10.04 LTS:
- php5-cgi 5.3.2-1ubuntu4.15
- Ubuntu 8.04 LTS:
- php5-cgi 5.2.4-2ubuntu5.24
To update your system, please follow these instructions: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/Upgrades.
In general, a standard system update will make all the necessary changes.