note 53729 deleted from function.shell-exec by betz

Note Submitter: bens at effortlessis dot com ---- THE FUNCTION POSTED BY "Jan dot besssai at gmx dot de" IS INCREDIBLY UNSAFE AND SHOULD NEVER BE USED... HIS POST STARTS WITH "Here is a safe way to create .htpasswd files for .htaccess"... Try this: execute the script with an url something like: http://hostname/scriptname.php?name=a%20b%3Brm%20-rf%20%2f and you've just deleted EVERY !@!@ FILE writable by whatever user that executes the script - typically the webserver! (I did not test the script, but it wouldn't be hard to make it work) Since $nam is treated as a literal, unchecked string and is passed directly to a shell command, YOU WOULD END UP EXECUTINIG A COMMAND LIKE: htpasswd -n -b -m a b; rm -rf / THIS IS TERRIBLE! Always always ALWAYS CHECK YOUR INPUT and use escapeshellarg() for good measure! NO EXCEPTIONS! I'm simply amazed that this post has existed for over a year and is still posted here!