CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2014-4721

Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor

Published: Jul 06, 2014 | Modified: Jan 19, 2023
CVSS 3.x
N/A
Source:
NVD
CVSS 2.x
2.6 LOW
AV:N/AC:H/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N
RedHat/V2
2.6 LOW
AV:N/AC:H/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N
RedHat/V3
Ubuntu
MEDIUM

The phpinfo implementation in ext/standard/info.c in PHP before 5.4.30 and 5.5.x before 5.5.14 does not ensure use of the string data type for the PHP_AUTH_PW, PHP_AUTH_TYPE, PHP_AUTH_USER, and PHP_SELF variables, which might allow context-dependent attackers to obtain sensitive information from process memory by using the integer data type with crafted values, related to a type confusion vulnerability, as demonstrated by reading a private SSL key in an Apache HTTP Server web-hosting environment with mod_ssl and a PHP 5.3.x mod_php.

Weakness

The product exposes sensitive information to an actor that is not explicitly authorized to have access to that information.

Affected Software

Name Vendor Start Version End Version
Php Php 5.3.0 (including) 5.3.29 (excluding)
Php Php 5.4.0 (including) 5.4.30 (excluding)
Php Php 5.5.0 (including) 5.5.14 (excluding)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 RedHat php53-0:5.3.3-23.el5_10 *
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 RedHat php-0:5.3.3-27.el6_5.1 *
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 RedHat php-0:5.4.16-23.el7_0 *
Red Hat Software Collections 1 for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 RedHat php54-php-0:5.4.16-22.el6 *
Red Hat Software Collections 1 for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 RedHat php55-php-0:5.5.6-13.el6 *
Red Hat Software Collections 1 for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.4 EUS RedHat php54-php-0:5.4.16-22.el6 *
Red Hat Software Collections 1 for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.4 EUS RedHat php55-php-0:5.5.6-13.el6 *
Red Hat Software Collections 1 for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 EUS RedHat php54-php-0:5.4.16-22.el6 *
Red Hat Software Collections 1 for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 EUS RedHat php55-php-0:5.5.6-13.el6 *
Red Hat Software Collections 1 for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.6 EUS RedHat php54-php-0:5.4.16-22.el6 *
Red Hat Software Collections 1 for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.6 EUS RedHat php55-php-0:5.5.6-13.el6 *
Red Hat Software Collections 1 for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 RedHat php54-php-0:5.4.16-22.el7 *
Red Hat Software Collections 1 for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 RedHat php55-php-0:5.5.6-13.el7 *
Php5 Ubuntu devel *
Php5 Ubuntu lucid *
Php5 Ubuntu precise *
Php5 Ubuntu saucy *
Php5 Ubuntu trusty *

Extended Description

There are many different kinds of mistakes that introduce information exposures. The severity of the error can range widely, depending on the context in which the product operates, the type of sensitive information that is revealed, and the benefits it may provide to an attacker. Some kinds of sensitive information include:

Information might be sensitive to different parties, each of which may have their own expectations for whether the information should be protected. These parties include:

Information exposures can occur in different ways:

It is common practice to describe any loss of confidentiality as an “information exposure,” but this can lead to overuse of CWE-200 in CWE mapping. From the CWE perspective, loss of confidentiality is a technical impact that can arise from dozens of different weaknesses, such as insecure file permissions or out-of-bounds read. CWE-200 and its lower-level descendants are intended to cover the mistakes that occur in behaviors that explicitly manage, store, transfer, or cleanse sensitive information.

Potential Mitigations

  • Compartmentalize the system to have “safe” areas where trust boundaries can be unambiguously drawn. Do not allow sensitive data to go outside of the trust boundary and always be careful when interfacing with a compartment outside of the safe area.
  • Ensure that appropriate compartmentalization is built into the system design, and the compartmentalization allows for and reinforces privilege separation functionality. Architects and designers should rely on the principle of least privilege to decide the appropriate time to use privileges and the time to drop privileges.

References