CVE-2006-2422 in phpCOIN
Summary
by MITRE
phpCOIN 1.2.3 and earlier stores messages based upon e-mail addresses, which allows remote authenticated users to read messages for other users by adding the sender s e-mail address as an "additional contact".
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 07/26/2018
The vulnerability described in CVE-2006-2422 affects phpCOIN versions 1.2.3 and earlier, representing a significant security flaw in the message handling system of this web-based content management platform. This issue stems from improper access control mechanisms within the application's messaging functionality, where the system relies on email addresses as identifiers for message retrieval rather than implementing proper user authentication checks. The flaw exists in the application's design philosophy where message visibility is determined by email address inclusion rather than user session validation or role-based access controls.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability allows authenticated users to exploit a message reading mechanism by simply knowing or manipulating the sender's email address. When users add another user's email address as an "additional contact" within the application, they gain unauthorized access to that user's messages without proper authorization. This represents a classic case of insufficient access control where the application fails to validate whether the requesting user has legitimate permissions to access specific message content. The vulnerability operates at the application logic level, bypassing normal security boundaries that should prevent cross-user message access.
From an operational impact perspective, this vulnerability creates a serious privacy and data exposure risk for users of phpCOIN installations. An authenticated attacker can potentially read sensitive communications intended for other users, compromising the confidentiality of exchanged messages. The implications extend beyond simple privacy violations to potential information leakage that could expose personal data, business communications, or other sensitive information. This type of vulnerability directly violates the principle of least privilege and can be exploited to perform information gathering activities that support more sophisticated attacks.
The vulnerability aligns with CWE-285, which addresses improper authorization in access control systems, and demonstrates how weak access control mechanisms can lead to unauthorized data access. From an ATT&CK framework perspective, this represents a privilege escalation and credential access technique where an attacker leverages existing authentication to gain access to additional resources. The attack vector involves legitimate application functionality being misused through social engineering or information gathering to identify valid email addresses that can be exploited for message reading.
Organizations using affected phpCOIN versions should implement immediate mitigations including updating to patched versions, implementing proper access control validation, and ensuring that message retrieval mechanisms require explicit user authentication and authorization checks. Additional defensive measures should include monitoring for unusual access patterns and implementing role-based access controls to prevent unauthorized message reading. The vulnerability highlights the critical importance of proper access control implementation in web applications and the necessity of validating user permissions at every data access point to prevent unauthorized information disclosure.