CVE-2026-111901 in phpMyFAQ
Summary
by MITRE • 10/17/2026
phpMyFAQ 4.2.0-alpha before 4.2.0-beta contains an uncontrolled resource consumption vulnerability in the unauthenticated faqs and search API endpoints. Attackers can send concurrent GET requests that load and process all database records into PHP memory, exhausting CPU and memory to crash the server.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/18/2026
The vulnerability identified in phpMyFAQ versions prior to 4.2.0-beta represents a critical uncontrolled resource consumption flaw located within the application's public-facing API endpoints, specifically targeting the faqs and search functionalities. This security issue stems from an architectural deficiency where these specific endpoints lack adequate input validation or rate limiting mechanisms for concurrent requests. Because these APIs are designed to be accessible without authentication, they present a low-barrier attack surface that can be exploited by any remote actor on the internet. The core technical failure lies in how the backend processes incoming queries against the underlying database; rather than implementing pagination limits or query optimization strategies that restrict the volume of data retrieved per request, the system attempts to load and process all available records into PHP memory space upon receiving a GET request.
From an operational perspective, this design flaw allows attackers to trigger severe performance degradation through simple yet effective denial-of-service techniques. By sending multiple concurrent GET requests to these endpoints, an attacker can force the server to allocate excessive amounts of RAM and CPU cycles as it attempts to parse and store large datasets in memory simultaneously. This behavior leads directly to resource exhaustion, causing the web application to become unresponsive or crash entirely due to out-of-memory errors or processor saturation. The impact is particularly severe because it does not require any form of user authentication, meaning that even users with no prior access privileges can disrupt service availability for all other legitimate users.
This vulnerability aligns closely with CWE-400, which classifies uncontrolled resource consumption as a category where an application fails to properly control the allocation and maintenance of limited resources, leading to exhaustion conditions such as memory leaks or CPU overuse. Furthermore, in terms of offensive security frameworks like MITRE ATT&CK, this behavior is indicative of techniques associated with Resource Hijacking or Denial of Service attacks, specifically those that target infrastructure availability by overwhelming system components rather than exploiting logical flaws for data access. The lack of concurrency controls and query result limiting constitutes a fundamental deviation from secure coding practices recommended in industry standards such as OWASP guidelines for API security.
To mitigate this vulnerability, immediate remediation involves upgrading to phpMyFAQ version 4.2.0-beta or later, where the developers have presumably addressed these resource management issues. In addition to patching, administrators should implement network-level protections such as rate limiting on web application firewalls to restrict the number of requests a single IP address can make within a given timeframe. Implementing pagination limits at the database query level is also essential to ensure that API responses never attempt to load entire datasets into memory simultaneously. These combined measures will significantly reduce the attack surface and prevent similar resource exhaustion scenarios in future deployments or unpatched environments.