bugtraq - Re: function sleep() in all versions of PHP

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 08:59:07 +0200
From: Juan Miguel - Prisma Virtual - <jmiguel@...smavirtual.com>
Cc: bugtraq@...urityfocus.com
Subject: Re: function sleep() in all versions of PHP

Mark Sanders escribió:
> This vulnerability is not per se a vulnerability but a annoyance that 
> has been dealt with in many ways.
>
> It is quite common to not let any process on a web server run longer 
> then a specified time. This is usually made possible by some trivial 
> shell scripting that checks the running time of certain processes.
>
> This annoyance is also not limited to PHP. Any scripting language that 
> has the ability to execute something with the means of system() can 
> create and call a script that uses memory and waits indefinitely.
>
> This is also an annoyance that will not be seen as a bug or will be 
> "fixed" because it would leave the language almost useless. Although 
> some do attempt to fix this by disabling all possible functions that 
> can execute something like exec, system, eval, etc. but it is not 
> limited to that. The same long wait can be achieved with fsockopen or 
> any other stream function like fread, fwrite, etc. Even if your wait 
> is limited to 60 seconds you can just repeat it in a simple loop and 
> still maintain the very low actual cpu time usage.
>
> This is and has never been a security hole or threat. It will also 
> never be. It is just an annoyance for which many solutions are already 
> available.

Which are the avalaible solutions ?

Thanks.