CVE-2004-1797 in FreznoShop
Summary
by MITRE
Cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in search.php for FreznoShop 1.3.0 RC1 and earlier allows remote attackers to inject arbitrary web script or HTML via the search parameter.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 07/06/2025
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2004-1797 represents a critical cross-site scripting flaw within the FreznoShop e-commerce platform version 1.3.0 RC1 and earlier releases. This security weakness resides in the search.php script which fails to properly sanitize user input before processing search queries. The vulnerability allows remote attackers to execute malicious web scripts or HTML code within the context of other users' browsers who visit affected pages. The flaw specifically manifests when the application does not adequately validate or escape the search parameter input, creating an avenue for malicious actors to inject harmful payloads that can be executed in the victim's browser environment.
From a technical perspective this vulnerability maps directly to CWE-79 which defines the classic cross-site scripting weakness where applications fail to properly validate or escape user-supplied data before incorporating it into dynamically generated web content. The attack vector exploits the lack of input sanitization in the search functionality, enabling threat actors to craft malicious search queries that contain embedded script tags or other HTML elements. When legitimate users browse pages containing the malicious search results or when the vulnerable application processes the crafted input, the injected code executes within the user's browser context, potentially leading to session hijacking, credential theft, or other malicious activities. The vulnerability represents a failure in the application's output encoding and input validation mechanisms that should have prevented the untrusted data from being rendered as executable code.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple data theft or defacement, as it can enable attackers to establish persistent access to user sessions and compromise the integrity of the entire e-commerce platform. Users who perform searches on affected systems may unknowingly execute malicious scripts that can steal cookies, session tokens, or personal information. The vulnerability undermines the trust model of the web application by allowing attackers to manipulate the user experience and potentially redirect users to malicious sites. Organizations running FreznoShop versions prior to the patched release face significant risk of user data exposure and potential financial loss due to compromised customer accounts and damaged reputation. The vulnerability also aligns with ATT&CK technique T1566 which describes the use of malicious content to gain access to systems through social engineering and web-based attacks.
Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability should include immediate implementation of proper input validation and output encoding mechanisms within the search.php script. The application should sanitize all user input by removing or encoding potentially dangerous characters such as angle brackets, script tags, and other HTML elements before processing or displaying search results. Security patches should be applied to upgrade FreznoShop to version 1.3.0 RC2 or later, which contains the necessary fixes for this vulnerability. Organizations should also implement Content Security Policy headers to provide additional protection against script injection attacks. Regular security testing including dynamic application security testing and manual penetration testing should be conducted to identify similar vulnerabilities in other application components. The remediation process should also include comprehensive code review of all input handling functions to ensure that similar flaws do not exist elsewhere in the application codebase, following secure coding practices and principles that prevent the injection of untrusted data into executable contexts.