Description
Cacti 0.8.6e and earlier does not perform proper input validation to protect against common attacks, which allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands or SQL by sending a legitimate value in a POST request or cookie, then specifying the attack string in the URL, which causes the get_request_var function to return the wrong value in the $_REQUEST variable, which is cleansed while the original malicious $_GET value remains unmodified, as demonstrated in (1) graph_image.php and (2) graph.php.
Fixed in Linux distributions
Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.
Debian
Security tracker ↗Advisories 1
- DSA-764-1 cacti - several Debian Security (DSA / DLA) · Mar 9, 2026
References
- http://www.cacti.net/downloads/patches/0.8.6e/cacti-0.8.6f_security.patch
- cacti-request-array-command-execution(21270) vdb-entry
- http://www.hardened-php.net/advisory-032005.php
- 20050702 Advisory 04/2005: Cacti Remote Command Execution Vulnerability mailing-list
- 20050702 Advisory 03/2005: Cacti Multiple SQL Injection Vulnerabilities [FIXED] mailing-list
- [cacti-announce] 20050701 Cacti 0.8.6f Released mailing-list
- cacti-graph-post-cookie-sql-injection(21266) vdb-entry
- ADV-2005-0951 vdb-entry
- DSA-764 vendor-advisory
- 14128 vdb-entry
- 15490 third-party-advisory
- 1014361 vdb-entry
- 14129 vdb-entry
- http://www.hardened-php.net/advisory-042005.php