CVE-2019-25592: PHPRunner 10.1 DoS Vulnerability

CVE-2019-25592 Overview

CVE-2019-25592 is a denial of service vulnerability affecting PHPRunner 10.1, a web application development tool. The vulnerability allows local attackers to crash the application by supplying an excessively long string in the dashboard name field during dashboard creation. When an attacker pastes a buffer of approximately 10,000 characters into the Name field, the application fails to properly handle the input, resulting in an application crash.

Critical Impact

Local attackers can cause a denial of service condition by crashing PHPRunner through buffer exhaustion in the dashboard name input field, disrupting development workflows and potentially causing data loss.

Affected Products

• PHPRunner 10.1

Discovery Timeline

• 2026-03-22 - CVE CVE-2019-25592 published to NVD
• 2026-03-23 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2019-25592

Vulnerability Analysis

This vulnerability is classified under CWE-1260 (Improper Handling of Overlap Between Protected Memory Ranges). The core issue stems from inadequate input validation and buffer management within PHPRunner's dashboard creation functionality. When processing user-supplied input for the dashboard name field, the application fails to enforce proper length restrictions, leading to memory handling issues when excessively long strings are provided.

The attack requires local access to the PHPRunner application interface. While no user interaction is required beyond having access to the dashboard creation functionality, the attack complexity is low as it simply requires pasting a long string into an input field. The vulnerability impacts availability only—confidentiality and integrity remain unaffected.

Root Cause

The root cause is improper handling of memory ranges when processing the dashboard name input field. PHPRunner 10.1 lacks adequate bounds checking on the Name field during dashboard creation. When a string exceeding expected limits is provided, the application attempts to process data beyond its allocated memory boundaries, resulting in a crash condition.

Attack Vector

The attack is executed locally through the PHPRunner user interface. An attacker with access to the application navigates to the dashboard creation feature and inputs an excessively long string (approximately 10,000 characters) into the Name field. Upon submission or processing of this input, the application crashes due to its inability to handle the oversized input properly.

The exploitation process involves:

1. Gaining local access to a system running PHPRunner 10.1
2. Navigating to the dashboard creation functionality
3. Pasting approximately 10,000 characters into the Name input field
4. Triggering the crash when the application attempts to process the input

Technical details and proof-of-concept information are available at Exploit-DB #46824.

Detection Methods for CVE-2019-25592

Indicators of Compromise

• Unexpected PHPRunner application crashes during dashboard creation operations
• Presence of unusually large text strings in application logs or memory dumps
• Multiple crash events occurring in rapid succession on systems running PHPRunner

Detection Strategies

• Monitor PHPRunner application logs for crash events related to dashboard operations
• Implement application-level monitoring to detect anomalous input lengths in form fields
• Deploy endpoint detection solutions to identify repeated application crashes indicative of exploitation attempts

Monitoring Recommendations

• Configure crash dump collection to analyze root causes of PHPRunner failures
• Set up alerts for application availability issues on systems running PHPRunner 10.1
• Monitor system event logs for application error events associated with PHPRunner

How to Mitigate CVE-2019-25592

Immediate Actions Required

• Upgrade PHPRunner to a version newer than 10.1 if available from XLineSoft
• Restrict local access to PHPRunner installations to authorized personnel only
• Implement network segmentation to limit exposure of development systems

Patch Information

Users should check the XLineSoft PHPRunner download page for the latest version that addresses this vulnerability. Additional advisory information is available from the VulnCheck Advisory.

Workarounds

• Implement input validation at the web server or proxy level to restrict input lengths in form fields
• Limit user permissions on systems running PHPRunner to reduce the attack surface
• Consider deploying PHPRunner in an isolated environment where crashes have minimal operational impact

# Example: Limit input field lengths at the web server level (Apache example)
# Add to httpd.conf or .htaccess to limit request body size
LimitRequestBody 102400