Skip to content
Fencer Vulns
medium 5.0

CVE-2009-4017 json

PHP before 5.2.12 and 5.3.x before 5.3.1 does not restrict the number of temporary files created when handling a multipart/form-data POST r…

published 2009-11-24 16 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also EUVD-2009-3988

cvss
5.0
version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
12.0%
EPSS 12.0% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 96%
public exploits
1
Exploit-DB

Summary

PHP before 5.2.12 and 5.3.x before 5.3.1 does not restrict the number of temporary files created when handling a multipart/form-data POST request, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (resource exhaustion), and makes it easier for remote attackers to exploit local file inclusion vulnerabilities, via multiple requests, related to lack of support for the max_file_uploads directive.

Patch / fix

  • php php 5.2.12
  • php RHEL 3 4.3.2-54.ent
  • php RHEL 4 4.3.9-3.29
  • php RHEL 5 5.1.6-24.el5_4.5
  • php-gd RHEL 4 4.3.9-3.29
  • php-gd RHEL 5 5.1.6-24.el5_4.5
  • php-cli RHEL 5 5.1.6-24.el5_4.5
  • php-dba RHEL 5 5.1.6-24.el5_4.5
  • php-pdo RHEL 5 5.1.6-24.el5_4.5

red hat advisories RHSA-2010:0040

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2009-4017 updated cvss 5.0

PHP: resource exhaustion attack via upload requests with lots of files

  • Red Hat Desktop version 3 php 4.3.2-54.ent, php-imap 4.3.2-54.ent, php-ldap 4.3.2-54.ent, php-odbc 4.3.2-54.ent, php-mysql 4.3.2-54.ent, php-pgsql 4.3.2-54.ent Red Hat Enterprise Linux (v. 5 server) php 5.1.6-24.el5_4.5, php-gd 5.1.6-24.el5_4.5, php-cli 5.1.6-24.el5_4.5, php-dba 5.1.6-24.el5_4.5, php-pdo 5.1.6-24.el5_4.5, php-xml 5.1.6-24.el5_4.5, +12 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS version 3 php 4.3.2-54.ent, php-imap 4.3.2-54.ent, php-ldap 4.3.2-54.ent, php-odbc 4.3.2-54.ent, php-mysql 4.3.2-54.ent, php-pgsql 4.3.2-54.ent Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS version 4 php 4.3.9-3.29, php-gd 4.3.9-3.29, php-imap 4.3.9-3.29, php-ldap 4.3.9-3.29, php-odbc 4.3.9-3.29, php-pear 4.3.9-3.29, +7 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop version 4 php 4.3.9-3.29, php-gd 4.3.9-3.29, php-imap 4.3.9-3.29, php-ldap 4.3.9-3.29, php-odbc 4.3.9-3.29, php-pear 4.3.9-3.29, +7 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop Workstation (v. 5 client) php 5.1.6-24.el5_4.5, php-gd 5.1.6-24.el5_4.5, php-cli 5.1.6-24.el5_4.5, php-dba 5.1.6-24.el5_4.5, php-pdo 5.1.6-24.el5_4.5, php-xml 5.1.6-24.el5_4.5, +12 more
    +4 more products
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES version 3 php 4.3.2-54.ent, php-imap 4.3.2-54.ent, php-ldap 4.3.2-54.ent, php-odbc 4.3.2-54.ent, php-mysql 4.3.2-54.ent, php-pgsql 4.3.2-54.ent Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES version 4 php 4.3.9-3.29, php-gd 4.3.9-3.29, php-imap 4.3.9-3.29, php-ldap 4.3.9-3.29, php-odbc 4.3.9-3.29, php-pear 4.3.9-3.29, +7 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS version 3 php 4.3.2-54.ent, php-imap 4.3.2-54.ent, php-ldap 4.3.2-54.ent, php-odbc 4.3.2-54.ent, php-mysql 4.3.2-54.ent, php-pgsql 4.3.2-54.ent Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS version 4 php 4.3.9-3.29, php-gd 4.3.9-3.29, php-imap 4.3.9-3.29, php-ldap 4.3.9-3.29, php-odbc 4.3.9-3.29, php-pear 4.3.9-3.29, +7 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2010:0040

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Timeline

  1. Published
  2. First public exploit (EDB-10242)

Exploit prediction

12.04% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 96% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • EDB-10242 PHP < 5.3.1 - 'MultiPart/form-data' Denial of Service dos, 2009-11-27

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 2.0 5.0 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-770 Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.