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Vulnerability Intelligence Report
PHPUnit: Argument injection via newline in PHP INI values forwarded to child processes

CVE-2026-41570

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.

No Active Exploit Signals
CVSS Base Score
7.8
HIGH
Exploitability:1.9
Impact Score:5.9
EPSS Probability:0.19%
Executive Threat Verdict
Evaluating...
Evaluating Threat Landscape...
Assessing known weaponization, exploitation telemetry, and federal advisories.
Attack Surface
Authentication
Weaponization
SSVC Action

Weaknesses (CWE)

CWE-93 ↗CWE-93: Improper Neutralization of CRLF Sequences ('CRLF Injection')
CWE-88 ↗CWE-88: Improper Neutralization of Argument Delimiters in a Command ('Argument Injection')

Affected Products & Versions

Vendor Product Affected Versions
sebastianbergmann phpunit = 12.5.21 (affected), = 13.1.5 (affected)

References & Technical Advisories

No reference links found.

Threat Intelligence Signals

EPSS Score
0.191%

Identity & Timeline

StatusPUBLISHED
Assigning AuthorityGitHub, Inc. · Vendor · USA
Reserved2026-04-21T14:15:21
Published2026-05-08T14:33:51
Last Updated2026-05-08T16:01:51

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