CriticalCVE-2009-1151

    phpMyAdmin Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (CVE-2009-1151)

    Published In CISA KEV since Sources: CVE.org

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    What is affected, what to do

    Static code injection vulnerability in setup.php in phpMyAdmin 2.11.x before 2.11.9.5 and 3.x before 3.1.3.1 allows remote attackers to inject arbitrary PHP code into a configuration file via the save action.

    The vulnerability is being actively exploited; treat it as a priority. Update phpMyAdmin to version 2.11.9.5, phpMyAdmin to version 3.1.3.1. Immediate actions, mitigation and detection rules are in the runbook below.

    Affected
    • phpMyAdmin lt 2.11.0..2.11.9.5
    • phpMyAdmin lt 3.0.0..3.1.3.1
    • Debian Linux eq 4.0..4.0
    • Debian Linux eq 5.0..5.0
    Fixed in
    • phpMyAdmin 2.11.9.5
    • phpMyAdmin 3.1.3.1

    Not sure whether and how you are affected? Ask a question about this vulnerability

    Metrics

    9.8

    Priority

    XIEM Effective CVSS: highest available CVSS rating from NVD and vendor data.

    Source: NVD, CVSS v3

    9.8

    CVSS v3

    Severity Critical on the scale from 0 to 10.

    Source: CVE.org

    96.6 %

    EPSS score

    High — model estimates ≥ 50% chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days.

    Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 99.88

    Show all metrics
    Severity
    Critical
    Priority (0–325)

    The priority score is a consolidated metric that condenses several individual signals into a single, action-guiding ranking: technical severity (CVSS), exploitation likelihood (EPSS), known-exploited status (KEV) and the context of the affected asset. The aim is to answer the only truly important question in vulnerability management: what first?

    Read in glossary
    228.81 Methodology
    Exploit maturity

    An exploit is code or a technique that specifically uses a concrete vulnerability to force unintended behaviour — such as executing code or escalating privileges. It is the tool that turns a theoretical flaw into a practical attack.

    Read in glossary
    actively exploited
    XIEM Effective CVSS

    XIEM® is the tiered managed-security operating model from NEOSEC and a registered trademark of NEOSEC GmbH. It extends classic SIEM — the central collection, normalisation and correlation of security-relevant events — with endpoint forensics, network visibility and deception technology, and consolidates them into three building tiers: Sentry, Orchestrate and Command.

    Read in glossary
    9.8 Methodology
    CVSS v3

    CVSS is the globally established, open standard for assessing the technical severity of a vulnerability on a scale from 0 to 10. It describes how easily a flaw can be exploited and what damage it can cause — but not how likely its actual exploitation is. CVSS and the complementary EPSS deliberately answer different questions.

    Read in glossary
    9.8
    EPSS score

    The EPSS score is the absolute model output for an individual vulnerability: the estimated probability of real-world exploitation within the next 30 days, expressed as a value between 0 and 1 (i.e. 0 % to 100 %). A score of 0.42 means „the model estimates a 42 % chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days“.

    Read in glossary
    96.6 %
    High — model estimates ≥ 50% chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days.
    EPSS percentile

    The EPSS percentile is the relative position of a vulnerability within all EPSS-scored CVEs, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. A percentile of 0.90 means „this CVE has a higher EPSS score than 90 % of all other scored CVEs“. Unlike the EPSS score, it is not a probability — but a positioning within a ranking.

    Read in glossary
    99.88
    Critical — this CVE ranks in the top fifth of all CVEs scored today (rank ≥ 80%).
    KEV status

    The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.

    Read in glossary
    Actively exploited
    Published
    In CISA KEV since

    The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.

    Read in glossary
    CISA assessment (SSVC)
    Exploitation: active · automatable · Technical impact: total
    Source: CISA Vulnrichment, as of 10 February 2025
    CWE

    CWE is a catalogue of typical weakness types in software and hardware — such as flawed input validation, unsafe memory handling or poor authentication. Where a CVE names a concrete vulnerability in a concrete product, a CWE describes the underlying class of defect.

    Read in glossary
    CWE-94

    Response and mitigation

    Why act now?

    Prioritisation rationale

    This CVE is on KEV because setup.php is network-reachable without authentication and a single crafted POST persistently injects attacker-controlled PHP into the configuration file, yielding reliable pre-auth RCE as the web-server user. Public exploits (including a Metasploit module) have existed for years, exploitation likelihood ranks among the highest in the entire catalogue, and mass scanners continuously sweep the internet for exposed phpMyAdmin paths. Typical victims are forgotten legacy LAMP stacks, shared-hosting tenants and dev servers that attackers abuse as a pivot into internal networks or for cryptomining. Treat any instance reachable outside the admin network as Critical; internally segmented instances remain High, since insider and lateral-movement exploitation is equally trivial.

    1. Runbook step 1

      Immediate response (0-24 h)

      • Upgrade phpMyAdmin immediately: 2.11.x branch to 2.11.9.5 or later, 3.x branch to 3.1.3.1 or later. Debian 4.0/5.0 hosts need the corresponding DSA packages; any live deployment should migrate off these EOL branches to a currently supported release (>= 5.2).
      • If patching within 24 h is impossible, remove or hard-block the setup path: delete scripts/setup.php and the /setup/ directory, or deny it at the web server (Deny from all in Apache, location ~ /setup { return 403; } in nginx). Production instances do not need the installer.
      • Audit exposure: any phpMyAdmin instance reachable from the internet or from untrusted VLANs must be placed behind VPN, bastion, or an IP allowlist today. Preserve the last 90 days of reverse-proxy logs for POST requests against setup.php as evidence.
      • Inspect config.inc.php (or config/config.inc.php) for injected PHP: look for eval(, base64_decode(, system(, passthru( and any stray $cfg assignments. If found, treat the host as compromised and rotate every MySQL credential reachable through phpMyAdmin.
      • Hunt for webshells and persistence on the host (see detection rules). On suspicion, isolate the box and take a forensic image before rebuilding.

    2. Runbook step 2

      Mitigation layers

      • Network segmentation: never expose phpMyAdmin to the internet. Restrict access to an admin VLAN, VPN, or SSH tunnel; block TCP/80 and TCP/443 for the vHost at the perimeter.
      • Web-server hardening: block /setup/, scripts/setup.php and /sql.php at the proxy or front them with HTTP Basic Auth. Lock down filesystem permissions on config/ so the web-server user cannot write (chmod 555 on the directory, chmod 444 on config.inc.php) — the exploit fails against a read-only config directory.
      • WAF/IPS: enable signatures for POST requests to setup.php with action=save, and for <?php payloads in request bodies. Load the Snort/Suricata community rules covering CVE-2009-1151; ModSecurity CRS ships relevant PHP-injection rules in the 932xxx series.
      • MySQL least privilege: the account used by phpMyAdmin must not hold FILE, SUPER or PROCESS privileges and must not have write access to the MySQL datadir, limiting lateral movement after a successful RCE.
      • Configuration-file monitoring: enrol config.inc.php in FIM (auditd, Wazuh, Tripwire) and alert on any modification — it is static in normal operation.
      • Strategic: retire legacy phpMyAdmin installs in favour of a managed DB admin tool, or restrict database access to CLI/SSH only.

    3. Runbook step 3

      Detection rules

      • Web-server access logs: POST to any URI containing setup.php returning HTTP 200, especially with suspicious user agents (curl, python-requests, empty). Sigma shape: selection: cs-method: POST, cs-uri-stem|contains: '/setup.php', cs-uri-query|contains: 'action=save'.
      • Request-body inspection (Zeek http.log with post-body plugin, or WAF log): occurrences of <?php, phpinfo(), eval(, base64_decode( in POST bodies targeting the phpMyAdmin vHost.
      • File integrity monitoring: auditd watch on config.inc.php (-w /path/to/phpmyadmin/config/config.inc.php -p wa -k pma_config); any write outside a planned deployment is an IOC.
      • Process telemetry (Sysmon-for-Linux / auditd): web-server account (www-data, apache, nginx) spawning sh, bash, perl, python, nc, wget, curl. KQL shape: DeviceProcessEvents | where InitiatingProcessFileName in ('httpd','apache2','nginx','php-fpm') and FileName in ('sh','bash','nc','curl','wget','python','perl').
      • Network egress: outbound connections from the web server to unknown IPs on high ports (reverse-shell indicator); correlate with preceding POSTs to setup.php.

    Detection rules

    No NEOSEC detection rule is available for this vulnerability yet.

    Classification under NIS2 and CRA

    Rule-based classification from exploitation status and severity. It does not replace a case-by-case assessment.

    NIS2

    NIS2 is EU Directive (EU) 2022/2555 to raise the level of cybersecurity across the Union. It substantially broadens obligations compared with the first NIS directive: more sectors, mandatory risk management, staged reporting duties and personal accountability of senior management.

    Read in glossary
    Actively exploited: treat the vulnerability as a priority in vulnerability handling under Art. 21(2)(e) NIS2. If it is exploited in your environment, check the reporting obligation under Art. 23 (early warning within 24 hours).
    CRA

    The CRA is EU Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 setting horizontal cybersecurity requirements for „products with digital elements“ — from industrial controllers and software to connected consumer devices. For the first time manufacturers must ensure security across the entire product lifecycle, handle vulnerabilities and provide security updates.

    Read in glossary
    Since 11.09.2026, manufacturers of affected products with digital elements must report actively exploited vulnerabilities under Art. 14 CRA, with an early warning within 24 hours via ENISA's single reporting platform.
    ISO/IEC 27001

    ISO/IEC 27001 is the internationally leading standard for an information security management system (ISMS). It describes a risk-based, process-oriented framework to systematically plan, implement, review and improve information security.

    Read in glossary
    Control A.8.8, management of technical vulnerabilities: assess relevance to your systems, plan remediation and keep evidence.

    Description

    Static code injection vulnerability in setup.php in phpMyAdmin 2.11.x before 2.11.9.5 and 3.x before 3.1.3.1 allows remote attackers to inject arbitrary PHP code into a configuration file via the save action.

    Source: NVD (NIST), cvelistv5, CISA KEV Catalog, CVE.org (MITRE)

    Affected products

    The following versions are affected. Older releases of the same product line are also vulnerable unless stated otherwise.

    Affected products
    Affected versionsFixed in
    phpmyadminphpmyadmin
    • 2.11.0 – < 2.11.9.5
    • 3.0.0 – < 3.1.3.1
    • 2.11.9.5
    • 3.1.3.1

    Vendors and products

    Affected operating systems

    Affected operating systems
    Linuxdebiandebian_linux4.0
    Linuxdebiandebian_linux5.0

    Weakness classes (CWE)

    • CWE-94Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')

      Base

      The product constructs all or part of a code segment using externally-influenced input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special elements that could modify the syntax or behavior of the intended code segment.

      Entry at MITRE CWE-94

    Public exploit references

    Publicly reported proof-of-concepts, exploit modules and detection templates for this vulnerability. NEOSEC links to the original sources only and does not provide any exploit code.

    Public exploit references
    CISA KEV CatalogCISA Known Exploited Vulnerability (opens in a new tab)cisa.govactively exploited
    Exploit-DBEDB-ID 8921 (opens in a new tab)exploit-db.comPoC (publicly reported)reported, not verified—

    References & sources

    • phpmyadmin.nethome_page/security/PMASA-2009-3.phpx_refsource_CONFIRM, Patch, Vendor advisory
    • security.gentoo.orgGLSA-200906-03Vendor advisory, x_refsource_GENTOO, Third-party advisory
    • secunia.com34642Third-party advisory, x_refsource_SECUNIA, Broken link, Vendor advisory
    • gnucitizen.orgblog/cve-2009-1151-phpmyadmin-remote-code-execution-proof-of-co…x_refsource_MISC, Exploit, Issue tracking
    • securityfocus.com20090609 CVE-2009-1151: phpMyAdmin Remote Code Execution Proof of ConceptMailing list, x_refsource_BUGTRAQ, Broken link, Third-party advisory, Vulnerability database
    • debian.orgDSA-1824Vendor advisory, x_refsource_DEBIAN, Mailing list
    • lists.opensuse.orgSUSE-SR:2009:008Vendor advisory, x_refsource_SUSE, Product
    • mandriva.comMDVSA-2009:115Vendor advisory, x_refsource_MANDRIVA, Broken link
    • securityfocus.com34236Vulnerability database, x_refsource_BID, Broken link, Third-party advisory, Vulnerability database
    • secunia.com34430Third-party advisory, x_refsource_SECUNIA, Broken link, Vendor advisory
    • secunia.com35635Third-party advisory, x_refsource_SECUNIA, Broken link, Vendor advisory
    • phpmyadmin.svn.sourceforge.netviewvc/phpmyadmin/branches/MAINT_2_11_9/phpMyAdmin/scripts/setu…x_refsource_CONFIRM, Vendor advisory
    • exploit-db.com8921Exploit, x_refsource_EXPLOIT-DB, Exploit, Third-party advisory, Vulnerability database
    • secunia.com35585Third-party advisory, x_refsource_SECUNIA, Broken link, Vendor advisory
    • labs.neohapsis.com2009/04/06/about-cve-2009-1151x_refsource_MISC, Broken link
    • cisa.govknown-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2009-1151government-resource, US government resource
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