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PhpunitApplication · Phpunit Project

CVE-2026-41570

HIGH · 7.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2026-05-08
Patch available
A vendor patch is available. No clean upgrade release — apply the published patch.
See remediation →
80/100
Remediation priority · High
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
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.

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

A detailed technical summary for this CVE is being prepared.

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
PhpunitApplication
Affected:= 12.5.21= 13.1.5

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
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/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
Patch available Apply the vendor patch
Vendor patch github.com →
Recommended fix High confidence

Upgrade to PHPUnit 12.5.22 (for 12.x line) or PHPUnit 13.1.6 (for 13.x line)

  1. 1. Identify the currently installed PHPUnit version using `composer show sebastianbergmann/phpunit` or `vendor/bin/phpunit --version`
  2. 2. For PHP Composer-based projects, update PHPUnit by running: `composer require --dev sebastianbergmann/phpunit:12.5.22` for the 12.x line or `composer require --dev sebastianbergmann/phpunit:13.1.6` for the 13.x line
  3. 3. Alternatively, update all dependencies with `composer update --dev sebastianbergmann/phpunit` ensuring the version constraints allow 12.5.22 or 13.1.6
  4. 4. Verify the upgrade was successful by running `vendor/bin/phpunit --version` and confirming the version number matches 12.5.22 or 13.1.6
  5. 5. Run your test suite to ensure functionality is intact: `vendor/bin/phpunit`
Caveat Patch version upgrades (12.5.x to 12.5.22) typically have no breaking changes; however, the 13.x line may have breaking changes from prior 13.x releases - review the PHPUnit 13.1.6 changelog if upgrading from an earlier 13.x version

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

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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-2026-41570 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

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