PHPUnit is a testing framework for PHP. In versions 12.5.21 and 13.1.5, PHPUnit forwards PHP INI settings to child processes (used for isolated/PHPT test execution) as -d name=value command-line arguments without neutralizing INI metacharacters. Because PHP's INI parser interprets " as a string delimiter, ; as the start of a comment, and most importantly a newline as a directive separator, a value containing a newline is parsed by the child process as multiple INI directives. An attacker able to influence a single INI value can therefore inject arbitrary additional directives into the child's configuration, including auto_prepend_file, extension, disable_functions, open_basedir, and others. Setting auto_prepend_file to an attacker-controlled path yields remote code execution in the child process. This issue has been patched in versions 12.5.22 and 13.1.6.

Affected: Packagist: phpunit/phpunit

## Impact

PHPUnit forwards PHP INI settings to child processes (used for isolated/PHPT test execution) as `-d name=value` command-line arguments without neutralizing INI metacharacters. Because PHP's INI parser interprets `"` as a string delimiter, `;` as the start of a comment, and most importantly a newline as a directive separator, a value containing a newline is parsed by the child process as multiple INI directives.

An attacker able to influence a single INI value can therefore inject arbitrary additional directives into the child's configuration, including `auto_prepend_file`, `extension`, `disable_functions`, `open_basedir`, and others. Setting `auto_prepend_file` to an attacker-controlled path yields remote code execution in the child process.

Sources of INI values that participate in the attack:

- `<ini name="…" value="…"/>` entries in `phpunit.xml` / `phpunit.xml.dist` - INI settings inherited from the host PHP runtime via `ini_get_all()`

### Threat Model

Exploitation requires the attacker to control the content of an INI value read by PHPUnit. In practice this means write access to the project's `phpunit.xml`, the host `php.ini`, or the PHP binary's environment. The most realistic exposure is [Poisoned Pipeline Execution](https://owasp.org/www-project-top-10-ci-cd-security-risks/CICD-SEC-04-Poisoned-Pipeline-Execution) (PPE): a pull request from an untrusted contributor that modifies `phpunit.xml` to include a newline-containing INI value, executed by a CI s…

Affected: Ubuntu:Pro:16.04:LTS: phpunit, Ubuntu:18.04:LTS: phpunit, Ubuntu:20.04:LTS: phpunit, Ubuntu:22.04:LTS: phpunit, Ubuntu:24.04:LTS: phpunit, Ubuntu:25.10: phpunit, Ubuntu:26.04:LTS: phpunit

PHPUnit is a testing framework for PHP. In versions 12.5.21 and 13.1.5, PHPUnit forwards PHP INI settings to child processes (used for isolated/PHPT test execution) as -d name=value command-line arguments without neutralizing INI metacharacters. Because PHP's INI parser interprets " as a string delimiter, ; as the start of a comment, and most importantly a newline as a directive separator, a value containing a newline is parsed by the child process as multiple INI directives. An attacker able to influence a single INI value can therefore inject arbitrary additional directives into the child's configuration, including auto_prepend_file, extension, disable_functions, open_basedir, and others. Setting auto_prepend_file to an attacker-controlled path yields remote code execution in the child process. This issue has been patched in versions 12.5.22 and 13.1.6.