CVE-2026-6722: php group php Use After Free

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2026-6722 is a critical (CVSS 9.8) Use After Free vulnerability in php group php. EPSS estimates a 1.29% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 70% of scored vulnerabilities.

Timeline

1. 10-05-2026
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 23-07-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

In PHP versions 8.2.* before 8.2.31, 8.3.* before 8.3.31, 8.4.* before 8.4.21, and 8.5.* before 8.5.6, the SOAP extension's object deduplication mechanism stores pointers to PHP objects in a global map without incrementing their reference counts. When an apache:Map node contains duplicate keys, processing the second entry overwrites the first in the temporary result map, freeing the original PHP object while its stale pointer remains in the map. A subsequent href reference to the freed node can copy the dangling pointer into the result. As PHP string allocations can reclaim the freed memory region, an attacker with control over the SOAP request body can exploit this use-after-free to achieve remote code execution.

• CWE-416Use After FreeThe product reuses or references memory after it has been freed. At some point afterward, the memory may be allocated again and saved in another pointer, while the original pointer references a location somewhere within the new allocation. Any operations using the original pointer are no longer valid because the memory "belongs" to the code that operates on the new pointer.
• CWE-825Expired Pointer DereferenceThe product dereferences a pointer that contains a location for memory that was previously valid, but is no longer valid.