# CVE-2015-9253: Denial of service in n/a

> Attackers can cause 100% CPU usage and disk exhaustion in PHP-FPM by triggering an endless restart loop via non-blocking STDIN streams.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.5 (`CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 19 Feb 2018
- **Updated:** 6 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-p68x-q9g7-4cgg, UBUNTU-CVE-2015-9253

## What is CVE-2015-9253?

CVE-2015-9253 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Php Php, published on 19 Feb 2018. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

An issue was discovered in PHP 7.3.x before 7.3.0alpha3, 7.2.x before 7.2.8, and before 7.1.20. The php-fpm master process restarts a child process in an endless loop when using program execution functions (e.g., passthru, exec, shell_exec, or system) with a non-blocking STDIN stream, causing this master process to consume 100% of the CPU, and consume disk space with a large volume of error logs, as demonstrated by an attack by a customer of a shared-hosting facility.

Weakness: CWE-400 (Uncontrolled Resource Consumption)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2015-9253?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Php Php.

## How do I fix CVE-2015-9253?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2015-9253 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2015-9253 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## 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-2015-9253 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2015-9253 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Php Php, published on 19 Feb 2018. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2015-9253 in the wild and no public exploit code.

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-2015-9253/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2015-9253/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2015-9253
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2015-9253
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2015-9253

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2015-9253/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.