CVE-2026-41570

HIGH

PHPUnit: Argument injection via newline in PHP INI values forwarded to child processes

Title source: cna
STIX 2.1

Description

PHPUnit is a testing framework for PHP. In versions 12.5.21 and 13.1.5, PHPUnit forwards PHP INI settings to child processes (used for isolated/PHPT test execution) as -d name=value command-line arguments without neutralizing INI metacharacters. Because PHP's INI parser interprets " as a string delimiter, ; as the start of a comment, and most importantly a newline as a directive separator, a value containing a newline is parsed by the child process as multiple INI directives. An attacker able to influence a single INI value can therefore inject arbitrary additional directives into the child's configuration, including auto_prepend_file, extension, disable_functions, open_basedir, and others. Setting auto_prepend_file to an attacker-controlled path yields remote code execution in the child process. This issue has been patched in versions 12.5.22 and 13.1.6.

References (2)

Core 2
Core References
X_Refsource_Misc x_refsource_misc
https://github.com/sebastianbergmann/phpunit/pull/6592

Scores

CVSS v3 7.8
EPSS 0.0019
EPSS Percentile 8.9%
Attack Vector LOCAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

CISA SSVC

Vulnrichment
Exploitation poc
Automatable no
Technical Impact total

Details

CWE
CWE-88 CWE-93
Status published
Products (6)
phpunit/phpunit 12.5.21 - 12.5.22Packagist
phpunit/phpunit 13.1.5 - 13.1.6Packagist
phpunit_project/phpunit 12.5.21
phpunit_project/phpunit 13.1.5
sebastianbergmann/phpunit = 12.5.21
sebastianbergmann/phpunit = 13.1.5
Published May 08, 2026
Tracked Since May 08, 2026