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CVE-2016-7478

39
FAUCET Score

CVE-2016-7478 is a denial-of-service vulnerability in PHP versions 5.x and 7.x, specifically within the Zend/zend_exceptions.c component. It allows remote attackers to trigger an infinite loop by providing a specially crafted Exception object in serialized data. This vulnerability carries a high CVSS score of 7.5, indicating it can be exploited remotely with low complexity and without user interaction, leading to a complete loss of availability. While there is no known active exploitation or public exploit code (Metasploit, Nuclei, ExploitDB), the vulnerability has garnered significant community discussion and media coverage, suggesting awareness within the security community.

Impacted Technologies

VendorProductVersion(s)CPE
5.0.0CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:php:php:5.0.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
5.0.0CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:php:php:5.0.0:beta1:*:*:*:*:*:*
5.0.0CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:php:php:5.0.0:beta2:*:*:*:*:*:*
5.0.0CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:php:php:5.0.0:beta3:*:*:*:*:*:*
5.0.0CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:php:php:5.0.0:beta4:*:*:*:*:*:*

CVSS Data

CVSS version used by this source: 3.0

7.5HIGH

CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
LOW
Privileges Required
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality Impact
NONE
Integrity Impact
NONE
Availability Impact
HIGH
Exploitability Score
3.9
Impact Score
3.6
CvssVersion
3.0

Exploit Intelligence

EPSS Score
42.40%
Probability of exploitation in next 30 days
EPSS Percentile
98.6%
Percentile rank of EPSS score among Peer Group
As of 2026-07-26
Model: v2026.06.15
This CVE's current EPSS score of 0.4240 is in the 97th percentile among its peer group of 51,485 CVEs.

Social Chatter

No social media mentions found for this CVE.

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 Twitter, 0.0 Reddit, 0.1 Bluesky, 0.1 Mastodon, and 0.4 GitHub mentions.

Media Mentions

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.1 InfoSec Media, 0.0 Vendor Blog, and 0.0 Security Researcher mentions.

Remediation

Vendor Patches (7)

redhatend of lifevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5Fixed in: php
redhatend of lifevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5Fixed in: php53
redhatend of lifevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6Fixed in: php
redhatend of lifevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7Fixed in: php
redhatend of lifevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat OpenShift Enterprise 2Fixed in: php
redhatend of lifevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Software CollectionsFixed in: rh-php56-php
redhatend of lifevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Software CollectionsFixed in: rh-php70-php

Vendor Advisories (1)

redhatCVE-2016-7478Moderate

php: Unserialize Exception object can lead to infinite loop

Sep 15, 2016

References

blog.checkpoint.com / 2016/12/27/check-point-discovers-three-zero-day-vulnerabilities-web-programming-language-php-7
Third Party AdvisoryVDB Entry
blog.checkpoint.com / wp-content/uploads/2016/12/PHP_Technical_Report.pdf
Third Party Advisory
bugs.php.net / bug.php
ExploitVendor Advisory
security.netapp.com / advisory/ntap-20180112-0001
youtube.com / watch
Press/Media Coverage
securityfocus.com / bid/95150