Nasty PHP7 remote code execution bug exploited in the wild

New PHP7 bug CVE-2019-11043 can allow even non-technical attackers to take over servers. A recently patched security flaw in modern versions of the PHP programming language is being exploited in the wild to take over servers, ZDNet has learned from threat intelligence firm Bad Packets. The vulnerability is a remote code execution (RCE) in PHP 7, the newer branch of PHP, the most common programming language used to build websites.

The issue, tracked as CVE-2019-11043, lets attackers run commands on servers just by accessing a specially-crafted URL. Exploiting the bug is trivial, and public proof-of-concept exploit code has been published on GitHub earlier this week. Fortunately, not all PHP-capable web servers are impacted.

Only NGINX servers with PHP-FPM enabled are vulnerable. PHP-FPM, or FastCGI Process Manager, is an alternative PHP FastCGI implementation with some additional features. However, while PHP-FPM is not a standard component of Nginx installs, some web hosting providers include it as part of their standard PHP hosting environments.

One such case is web hosting provider Nextcloud, who issued a security advisory to its clients on Thursday, October 24, urging customers to update PHP to the latest release, versions 7.3.11 and 7.2.24, which had been released on the same day and included fixes for CVE-2019-11043. Many other web hosting providers are also suspected of running the vulnerable Nginx+PHP-FPM combo.

Source: zdnet.com