CVE-2026-41570
PHPUnit has Argument injection via newline in PHP INI values that are forwarded to child processes
Impact
PHPUnit is a testing framework for PHP. In versions 12.5.21 and 13.1.5, PHPUnit forwards PHP INI settings to child processes (used for isolated/PHPT test execution) as -d name=value command-line arguments without neutralizing INI metacharacters. Because PHP's INI parser interprets " as a string delimiter, ; as the start of a comment, and most importantly a newline as a directive separator, a value containing a newline is parsed by the child process as multiple INI directives. An attacker able to influence a single INI value can therefore inject arbitrary additional directives into the child's configuration, including auto_prepend_file, extension, disable_functions, open_basedir, and others. Setting auto_prepend_file to an attacker-controlled path yields remote code execution in the child process. This issue has been patched in versions 12.5.22 and 13.1.6.
Affected packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|---|
| composer | phpunit/phpunit | = 12.5.21 | 12.5.22 |
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected versions |
|---|---|---|
| Phpunit Project | Phpunit | Versions 12.5.21, 13.1.5 |
Weakness classification
References
- NVD record
- CVE.org record
- GitHub advisory
- https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-qrr6-mg7r-m243
- https://github.com/sebastianbergmann/phpunit/security/advisories/GHSA-qrr6-mg7r-m243
- https://github.com/sebastianbergmann/phpunit/pull/6592
- https://github.com/FriendsOfPHP/security-advisories/blob/master/phpunit/phpunit/CVE-2026-41570.yaml
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-41570