# CVE-2012-0789: Denial of service in n/a

> Remote attackers can cause denial of service via memory consumption by triggering excessive strtotime calls in PHP timezone handling.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.0 (`AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 14 Feb 2012
- **Updated:** 6 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-q63r-5v5h-328m

## What is CVE-2012-0789?

CVE-2012-0789 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Php Php, published on 14 Feb 2012. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Memory leak in the timezone functionality in PHP before 5.3.9 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (memory consumption) by triggering many strtotime function calls, which are not properly handled by the php_date_parse_tzfile cache.

Weakness: CWE-399

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2012-0789?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Php Php.

## How do I fix CVE-2012-0789?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2012-0789 being exploited?

It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2012-0789 exists.

Public exploit code:

- PHP 5.3.8 - Remote Denial of Service (exploitdb)

## Other vulnerabilities in Php Php

- [CVE-2012-2688](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2012-2688/): Integer overflow in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2012-2376](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2012-2376/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2011-3268](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2011-3268/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2009-4143](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2009-4143/): Other in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2008-5557](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2008-5557/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 10.0)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2012-0789 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2012-0789 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Php Php, published on 14 Feb 2012. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2012-0789 exists.

Affected product: Php Php. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2012-0789/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2012-0789/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2012-0789
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2012-0789
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2012-0789

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2012-0789/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.