Buffer overflow in PHP - CVE-2016-7480
Published: July 20, 2022 / Updated: June 14, 2025
Vulnerability identifier: #VU110256
CSH Severity: High
CVSS v4.0: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:P/U:Amber
CVE-ID: CVE-2016-7480
CWE-ID: CWE-119
Exploitation vector: Remote access
Exploit availability:
Public exploit is available
Vendor: PHP Group
Affected software:
PHP
PHP
Detailed vulnerability description
The vulnerability allows a remote non-authenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code.
The SplObjectStorage unserialize implementation in ext/spl/spl_observer.c in PHP before 7.0.12 does not verify that a key is an object, which allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (uninitialized memory access) via crafted serialized data.
How to mitigate CVE-2016-7480
Install update from vendor's website.
Sources
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDcaPstAuPk
- https://github.com/php/php-src/commit/61cdd1255d5b9c8453be71aacbbf682796ac77d4
- https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=73257
- http://php.net/ChangeLog-7.php
- http://blog.checkpoint.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/PHP_Technical_Report.pdf
- http://blog.checkpoint.com/2016/12/27/check-point-discovers-three-zero-day-vulnerabilities-web-programming-language-php-7
- http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/95152
- https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20180112-0001/