CVE-2005-1674 in Help Center Live
Summary
by MITRE
Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in Help Center Live allows remote attackers to perform actions as the administrator via a link or IMG tag to view.php.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 01/16/2025
The CVE-2005-1674 vulnerability represents a critical cross-site request forgery flaw within the Help Center Live application that exposes administrators to remote exploitation. This vulnerability operates through a sophisticated attack vector that leverages the application's lack of proper request validation mechanisms, allowing malicious actors to manipulate administrative functions through seemingly benign web elements. The core issue manifests when attackers craft malicious links or image tags that point to the vulnerable view.php endpoint, enabling them to execute unauthorized administrative commands without proper authentication.
The technical implementation of this CSRF vulnerability stems from the application's failure to implement robust anti-CSRF measures such as secret tokens or referer validation within its session management framework. When an administrator visits a malicious page containing crafted HTML elements, the browser automatically executes requests to the vulnerable application's view.php script without requiring additional authentication. This occurs because the application does not verify that requests originate from legitimate sources within the same context as the authenticated session, creating a fundamental gap in the security model that aligns with CWE-352, which specifically addresses cross-site request forgery vulnerabilities.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple privilege escalation, as it allows attackers to perform critical administrative functions including user management, system configuration changes, and potentially data manipulation within the Help Center Live environment. Attackers can leverage this vulnerability to add new administrator accounts, modify existing user permissions, delete important system files, or even inject malicious content into the help center. The attack surface is particularly concerning given that administrators typically maintain elevated privileges and access to sensitive system resources, making successful exploitation equivalent to complete system compromise.
From a threat modeling perspective, this vulnerability maps directly to several ATT&CK techniques including T1566.001 for credential harvesting and T1078 for valid accounts, as attackers can effectively hijack administrative sessions without direct credential access. The vulnerability also aligns with T1190 for exploitation of remote services and T1083 for system information discovery, as successful exploitation often involves reconnaissance to identify the specific administrative functions that can be compromised. Organizations running Help Center Live systems face significant risk from this vulnerability, particularly in environments where administrative access is not properly segmented or where users may inadvertently click on malicious links in emails or web content.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2005-1674 should focus on implementing comprehensive anti-CSRF protection mechanisms including the use of unique, unpredictable tokens for each user session that must be validated on every request. The application should enforce strict referer header validation and implement proper session management controls to ensure that requests originate from legitimate sources within the same application context. Additionally, organizations should consider implementing Content Security Policy headers to limit the execution of unauthorized scripts and images, while also ensuring that administrators are educated about the risks of clicking on untrusted links. The vulnerability highlights the critical importance of input validation and request integrity checking within web applications, as recommended by OWASP Top 10 and other industry security frameworks that emphasize the need for robust session management and anti-CSRF protections to prevent unauthorized administrative access.