PHP Vulnerability Exploited to Spread Malware and Launch DDoS Attacks
Jul 11, 2024
Cyber Attack / Vulnerability
Multiple threat actors have been observed exploiting a recently disclosed security flaw in PHP to deliver remote access trojans, cryptocurrency miners, and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) botnets. The vulnerability in question is CVE-2024-4577 (CVSS score: 9.8), which allows an attacker to remotely execute malicious commands on Windows systems using Chinese and Japanese language locales. It was publicly disclosed in early June 2024. "CVE-2024-4577 is a flaw that allows an attacker to escape the command line and pass arguments to be interpreted directly by PHP," Akamai researchers Kyle Lefton, Allen West, and Sam Tinklenberg said in a Wednesday analysis. "The vulnerability itself lies in how Unicode characters are converted into ASCII." The web infrastructure company said it began observing exploit attempts against its honeypot servers targeting the PHP flaw within 24 hours of it being public knowledge. This included exploits designed to deliver a remote