New PHP Vulnerability Exposes Windows Servers to Remote Code Execution

Details have emerged about a new critical security flaw in PHP that can be exploited to achieve remote code execution under certain conditions. The vulnerability, identified as CVE-2024-4577, is a CGI argument injection issue affecting all PHP versions installed on the Windows operating system.

According to DEVCORE security researcher Orange Tsai, the flaw allows attackers to bypass protections put in place for another security flaw, CVE-2012-1823. Tsai noted, "While implementing PHP, the team did not notice the Best-Fit feature of encoding conversion within the Windows operating system. This oversight enables unauthenticated attackers to bypass the previous protection of CVE-2012-1823 through specific character sequences, leading to arbitrary code execution on remote PHP servers via the argument injection attack."

After responsible disclosure on May 7, 2024, a fix has been released in PHP versions 8.3.8, 8.2.20, and 8.1.29.

DEVCORE has warned that all XAMPP installations on Windows are vulnerable by default when configured to use the locales for Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, or Japanese. The Taiwanese company recommends that administrators transition away from the outdated PHP CGI and opt for more secure solutions like Mod-PHP, FastCGI, or PHP-FPM.

"This vulnerability is incredibly simple, but that's also what makes it interesting," Tsai said. "Who would have thought that a patch, which has been reviewed and proven secure for the past 12 years, could be bypassed due to a minor Windows feature?"

The Shadowserver Foundation reported detecting exploitation attempts against its honeypot servers within 24 hours of public disclosure. WatchTowr Labs confirmed it was able to devise an exploit for CVE-2024-4577 and achieve remote code execution, emphasizing the urgency for users to apply the latest patches.

Security researcher Aliz Hammond remarked, "Those running in an affected configuration under one of the affected locales—Chinese (simplified or traditional) or Japanese—are urged to update as quickly as possible. This bug has a high chance of being exploited en masse due to its low exploit complexity."

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