Comment by airtnp
13 hours ago
Ok, based on my reads on Wiz and Calif writeups, there are 5-6 issues mapped to 2 CVEs.
Wiz (with GPT 5.6 Sol + Gemini 4 Argon) : Remote process-memory disclosure; OPcache type confusion; Fatal-error backtrace UAF. POC on Wordpress, Drupal and Joomla
Calif (with LLM, no specific model, but model is accessible to all): Zend HashTable OOM. Targets PHP-FPM and mod_php.
Both discovers the UAF on upload progress unserializer.
Surprised to see the anime girl dancing with POC is really uploaded by Calif researchers.
BTW, the backport fix seems to disable session upload entire in old version, not fixing the issue like new versions:
https://github.com/php/php-src/commit/712e60f9edfd03f0960fc4...
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Both of them memory safety issues. C is just not fit for purpose in this decade.
C is not to blame for programmers using its features unwisely and, as a result, writing buggy code. Writing secure C code requires discipline, and, most likely, keeping yourself limited to a subset of the language.
This is why languages like Rust have their place - their compilers impose the discipline and the restraint C doesn't. It's not impossible to write code with memory safety issues in Rust - it's just a lot harder. I remember saying the same about Java - it doesn't make writing the program any easier, but it makes writing some bugs difficult.
> C is not to blame for programmers using its features unwisely and, as a result, writing buggy code. Writing secure C code requires discipline, and, most likely, keeping yourself limited to a subset of the language.
It sure is to blame. Evidence shows you need wisdom, discipline, and an impossibly high bar of encyclopedic knowledge of every feature of C and all common libc's combined with an inhuman perfection of never once making a single typo, and a vast amount of tooling to analyze the code and find some of the bugs that made it through anyway.
The best, most trusted, most accomplished C programmers I could name still have a track record of writing vulnerabilities triggered by C footguns, not just garden variety logic bugs that could affect code written in any language. Can I write more diligent C code than the OpenBSD team? Than the Linux devs? Than Fabrice "I made everything" Bellard? Not a chance, but C has bitten each of them. Us mortals don't stand a chance.
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"Writing secure C code requires discipline"
Ah the old, you're using the tool wrong.
Yes, perhaps, although a tool that no one seems to be able to use correctly, see kernel bugs, zero days everywhere, bugs in cURL by people who seem very rigorous and thorough, in google and microsoft products, etc. I'm not sure the tool is innocent in this. If the highest paid C developers in the world can't use it, who can?
Yes and no. I'd say there's nothing wrong with C - it's not evil - but maybe we still shouldn't use it because we should demand things C doesn't provide. There's nothing wrong with assembly code either but we rarely use it.
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> C is not to blame for programmers using its features unwisely
"Make no mistakes" works about as well for humans as it does for AI, and we have decades of lived experiences to draw on for that verdict.
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What we have learned over the past many decades is that no amount of discipline solves this. It does not matter how world class your team is. Complex C programs that process untrusted input have security vulnerabilities.
C allows you to express things easily which should not be easily expressable. When people do these things it is almost always in error.
That is the fault of the language.
“C cannot fail; it can only be failed”
Whats the issue with the POC video? I dont understand why thats surprising
Don't you think the style of video looks a bit unprofessional? It's like the next iPhone being presented by the Apple CEO but using a vTuber avatar with subway surfer gameplay in the background.
In some circles it is a sign of credibility. Leaking it beforehand is very unprofessional, however.
After all, furries run the internet.
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> the next iPhone being presented by the Apple CEO but using a vTuber avatar
sounds like a good time
Before the official fix someone published it, and it seems the person is not associated with Calif: https://x.com/k_firsov
How did they get access to the script though? The output seems to be identical to the real PoC, so it looks like the same script.
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