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Fencer Intel
high 7.5

CVE-2015-8994 json

An issue was discovered in PHP 5.x and 7.x, when the configuration uses apache2handler/mod_php or php-fpm with OpCache enabled.

published 2017-03-02 9 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2015-8848

cvss
7.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
2.9%
EPSS 2.9% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 87%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

An issue was discovered in PHP 5.x and 7.x, when the configuration uses apache2handler/mod_php or php-fpm with OpCache enabled. With 5.x after 5.6.28 or 7.x after 7.0.13, the issue is resolved in a non-default configuration with the opcache.validate_permission=1 setting. The vulnerability details are as follows. In PHP SAPIs where PHP interpreters share a common parent process, Zend OpCache creates a shared memory object owned by the common parent during initialization. Child PHP processes inherit the SHM descriptor, using it to cache and retrieve compiled script bytecode ("opcode" in PHP jargon). Cache keys vary depending on configuration, but filename is a central key component, and compiled opcode can generally be run if a script's filename is known or can be guessed. Many common shared-hosting configurations change EUID in child processes to enforce privilege separation among hosted users (for example using mod_ruid2 for the Apache HTTP Server, or php-fpm user settings). In these scenarios, the default Zend OpCache behavior defeats script file permissions by sharing a single SHM cache among all child PHP processes. PHP scripts often contain sensitive information: Think of CMS configurations where reading or running another user's script usually means gaining privileges to the CMS database.

Patch / fix

  • php php 7.0.14
  • php5 Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 5.5.9+dfsg-1ubuntu4.22

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2015-8994

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • php7 SLE Software Development Kit 12 SP2, SLE Software Development Kit 12 SP1, SLE Module for Web and Scripting 12 7.0.7-38.1
  • php5 SLE Software Development Kit 12 SP2, SLE Software Development Kit 12 SP1, SLE Module for Web and Scripting 12 5.5.14-99.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2017:0899-1SUSE-SU-2017:0761-1

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-2015-8994 updated cvss 5.3

php: Zend OPCache code permission/sensitive data protection issues

  • Red Hat Software Collections rh-php56-php, rh-php70-php, rh-php56-php-gd, rh-php70-php-gd, rh-php56-php-cli, rh-php56-php-dba, +52 more
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 php, php53 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 php, php-gd, php-cli, php-dba, php-fpm, php-pdo, +20 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 php, php-gd, php-cli, php-dba, php-fpm, php-pdo, +18 more
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

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

Exploit prediction

2.94% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 87% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • ma.ttias.be https://ma.ttias.be/a-better-way-to-run-php-fpm/ referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified
  • bugs.php.net https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=69090 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 6.8 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-264 Permissions, Privileges, and Access Controls
Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Intel 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.