PHPApplication

CVE-2017-9226

CRITICAL · 9.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2017-05-24
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 5.6.31 / 7.0.21 or later.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Public exploit Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click Patch available

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
An issue was discovered in Oniguruma 6.2.0, as used in Oniguruma-mod in Ruby through 2.4.1 and mbstring in PHP through 7.1.5. A heap out-of-bounds write or read occurs in next_state_val() during regular expression compilation. Octal numbers larger than 0xff are not handled correctly in fetch_token() and fetch_token_in_cc(). A malformed regular expression containing an octal number in the form of '\700' would produce an invalid code point value larger than 0xff in next_state_val(), resulting in an out-of-bounds write memory corruption.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis
How this class of weakness works · CWE-787

The program writes past the bounds of a buffer, overwriting adjacent memory an attacker can turn to their advantage. Crafted input can overwrite control data and redirect execution. Remediation is validating every index and length before a write, plus modern memory-safety mitigations.

General guidance for the out-of-bounds write class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
PHPApplication
Affected:< 5.6.31>= 7.0.0, < 7.0.21>= 7.1.0, < 7.1.7
OnigurumaApplication
Affected:= 6.2.0

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 5.6.31 / 7.0.21 / 7.1.7 or later
Fixed in 5.6.317.0.217.1.7
Vendor patch github.com →
Recommended fix High confidence

PHP 5.6.31, 7.0.21, or 7.1.7 (or later stable releases); Oniguruma 6.2.0 with commit b4bf968ad52afe14e60a2dc8a95d3555c543353a applied

  1. For PHP users: Upgrade PHP to version 5.6.31, 7.0.21, 7.1.7, or a later stable version that includes the fix
  2. For standalone Oniguruma users: Apply the patch from commit b4bf968ad52afe14e60a2dc8a95d3555c543353a (https://github.com/kkos/oniguruma/commit/b4bf968ad52afe14e60a2dc8a95d3555c543353a)
  3. After upgrading or patching, verify that the Oniguruma library version is 6.2.0 with the fix applied
  4. Test that PHP applications using regular expressions with octal sequences (e.g., '\700') no longer cause memory corruption
Caveat Major PHP version upgrades (e.g., 5.x to 7.x) may introduce breaking changes in application code; review PHP migration guides before upgrading

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $3,550. Get the upgrade done

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2017-9226 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

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What belongs here
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  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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