CVE-2025-14180
📋 TL;DR
This vulnerability in PHP's PDO PostgreSQL driver causes a null pointer dereference when using prepared statements with invalid character sequences, leading to segmentation faults and server crashes. It affects PHP applications using PostgreSQL with PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES enabled. The vulnerability impacts availability by causing denial of service.
💻 Affected Systems
- PHP
📦 What is this software?
Php by Php
Php by Php
Php by Php
Php by Php
Php by Php
⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact
Worst Case
Complete server crash leading to sustained denial of service, potentially affecting multiple applications on the same server.
Likely Case
Application crashes and restarts causing intermittent service disruption and degraded performance.
If Mitigated
Minimal impact if proper input validation and error handling are implemented at application level.
🎯 Exploit Status
Exploitation requires sending specially crafted input to applications using vulnerable PHP configuration. No authentication needed if application accepts external input.
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: PHP 8.1.34, 8.2.30, 8.3.29, 8.4.16, 8.5.1
Vendor Advisory: https://github.com/php/php-src/security/advisories/GHSA-8xr5-qppj-gvwj
Restart Required: Yes
Instructions:
1. Identify PHP version using 'php -v'. 2. Upgrade to patched version via package manager (apt-get upgrade php, yum update php, etc.). 3. Restart web server (apache2 restart, systemctl restart nginx). 4. Verify fix with 'php -v'.
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Disable PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES
allDisable emulate prepares in PDO PostgreSQL connections to avoid the vulnerable code path.
$pdo->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES, false);
Input Validation Filter
allImplement input validation to reject invalid character sequences before they reach PDO.
if (!preg_match('/^[\x20-\x7E]+$/', $input)) { throw new Exception('Invalid characters'); }
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Implement strict input validation to filter out invalid character sequences (\x00-\x1F, \x7F-\xFF) from user inputs.
- Use alternative database drivers or switch to native prepared statements by disabling PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES.
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Check PHP version with 'php -v' and verify if using PDO PostgreSQL with emulate prepares enabled.Check Version:
php -v | grep -oP 'PHP \K[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+'Verify Fix Applied:
After patching, confirm version is 8.1.34+, 8.2.30+, 8.3.29+, 8.4.16+, or 8.5.1+ with 'php -v'.📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Segmentation fault errors in PHP/webserver logs
- Unexpected process termination of PHP-FPM or Apache workers
- PostgreSQL connection errors following PHP crashes
Network Indicators:
- Sudden increase in HTTP 500 errors
- Service unavailability patterns coinciding with database queries
SIEM Query:
source="php_error.log" AND ("segmentation fault" OR "null pointer" OR "SIGSEGV")