POST /?-d+allow_url_include%3don+-d+auto_prepend_file%3dphp%3a//input HTTP/1.1 Host: vulnerable.com Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded Content-Length: 25 <?php system('id'); ?>
Disclaimer: This post is for educational purposes and authorized security testing only. Exploiting systems you do not own is illegal. php 5.3.10 exploit
Because PHP 5.3.10 did not properly filter the query string, an attacker could inject flags directly into the PHP binary. The most famous primitive in this exploit is the -s flag. The -s flag tells PHP to display the source code of the script in highlighted HTML (like show_source() ). POST /
While this specific vector is mostly extinct in modern cloud infrastructure, it lives on in embedded systems and legacy internal networks. If you find this during a penetration test, you have effectively found a "Golden Ticket" to execute system commands. The most famous primitive in this exploit is the -s flag
When PHP is run in CGI mode (using php-cgi ), the web server passes request data to the PHP binary via command-line arguments. Normally, a request to index.php translates to: